Using the lessons
- Every lesson works without an account, on a phone or a classroom screen.
- The numbers update each trading night, so a class can rerun a lesson and see what moved.
- Each activity uses the lesson’s Try it control: set it as a class, then ask what changed and why.
Money Basics
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where your money goes: needs, wants and saving | 6 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 B | Move the sliders to split a made-up paycheck. See what each share becomes each month. |
| What you own when you own an ETF | 6 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 A | Pick an amount. See how SPY's top holdings turn that amount into dollars. |
| Cash or invested: what each paid this year | 6 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 B | Pick an amount. See what a year and a month in BIL and in SPY would have added or cost. |
| What a fee really costs you over 30 years | 6 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 B | Move the fee sliders. See how two fees pull apart over the years. |
| Taxes in plain words: dividends, interest and gains | 7 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 B | Pick an amount. See how a payout from QYLD would split by its annual report. |
| Starting small: how $100 a month grows | 6 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 B | Set a monthly amount and the years. See what you put in against what it grows to. |
| Your first fund check: read a fund page in 5 minutes | 7 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 B | Pick an amount. See JEPI's cash, its total return, SPY's, and each fund's largest fall. |
Building Wealth
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your emergency fund: how much, and where to keep it | 7 | 1 A, 2 D, 3 C | Set the size of your fund. See what each of four ETFs earned on it over the year. |
| Inflation and real return: what your money can buy | 7 | 1 D, 2 C, 3 B | Pick an amount. See what a year of BIL and SPY returns added, before inflation takes its share. |
| Income funds: why yield is not return | 7 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 D | Pick an amount. See the cash each fund paid next to what it returned in total. |
| Taxable or tax-advantaged: where payouts get taxed | 7 | 1 B, 2 D, 3 A | Pick an amount. See each fund's cash and the tax it would add in a taxable account. |
| Bonds for income: duration and the rate cushion | 7 | 1 C, 2 A, 3 D | Pick an amount. See what a 1-point rise in rates costs each fund, and what a year of income pays. |
| Retirement withdrawals: a 4% draw in a bad year | 7 | 1 D, 2 B, 3 A | Set a balance. See what each calendar year did to it, before any draw. |
Planning Deep Dive
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequence risk: why the order of returns matters | 7 | 1 A, 2 D, 3 C | Set a balance. See what each calendar year did to it, before any draw. |
| Tax-aware fund choice: how a fund's build shapes your tax | 7 | 1 D, 2 B, 3 A | Pick an amount. See each fund's cash, and the tax it adds now and at sale. |
| Concentration: see what you already own | 7 | 1 C, 2 D, 3 B | Pick an amount. See what the three funds put in Apple, NVIDIA and Microsoft combined. |
| Inflation and rates: when bonds stop cushioning | 7 | 1 A, 2 C, 3 B | Pick an amount. See what 2018 and 2022 did to an all-bond mix and a 95% stock mix. |
| Evaluating a fund: fee, benchmark and promise | 7 | 1 A, 2 B, 3 D | Pick an amount. See what each income fund paid in cash and returned in total, against SPY. |
| Write your own investment rules | 8 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 A | Pick an amount. See what each mix's largest fall would have cost. |
Build a Simple Portfolio
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stocks, bonds and cash: the three building blocks | 6 | 1 C, 2 C, 3 B | Set an amount. Watch it grow in stocks, bonds, cash and a 60/40 mix over ten years. |
| Diversification: why one holding is not a portfolio | 6 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 C | Set an amount. See what a 50% fall in one company costs alone, in VOO, or as a small holding. |
| What a benchmark is, and how to pick the right one | 6 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 A | Set an amount. See AOR against its matched benchmark and an all-stock benchmark over ten years. |
| Sector and theme funds: what they really add | 6 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 B | Set an amount. See how much sits in NVIDIA with all VOO, a 90/10 mix, or all SMH. |
| How to compare two funds on the facts | 7 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 C | Set an amount. See QQQ against VOO over ten years. |
| Rebalancing: why your mix drifts and when to reset it | 7 | 1 B, 2 B, 3 C | Set an amount. See how much of it sits in stocks and in bonds after nine years left alone. |
Allocation and Risk
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Risk in numbers: volatility, worst fall, downside capture | 7 | 1 C, 2 D, 3 A | Set an amount. See what is left of it after each fund's worst fall, ARKK against VOO. |
| Risk-adjusted return: Sharpe, Sortino and Calmar | 7 | 1 B, 2 A, 3 D | Set the risk. Each bar is the reward earned for that much risk, which is the ratio times the risk. |
| Allocation funds: what a stock-share band tells you | 7 | 1 B, 2 D, 3 A | Set an amount. See the dollars each fund lost at its worst ten-year fall, from 31% to 80% stocks. |
| Overlap and hidden concentration across your funds | 7 | 1 C, 2 D, 3 B | Set an amount. See the dollars in NVIDIA and in the top three companies, one fund against three. |
| Core and satellite: where theme funds fit | 7 | 1 B, 2 A, 3 C | Set an amount. See what a 10% ARKK satellite adds as new money, costs in fees, and could lose. |
| Fees, fully costed: expense ratio vs total cost | 7 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 A | Set an amount. See each fund's fee for one year and its trading cost, PXH against QQQM. |
| Benchmarking a portfolio against a simple mix | 7 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 D | Tap a window. See what $10,000 grew to in MDIV and in its matching benchmark, Strategic 60. |
Advanced Portfolio Design
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha, beta and R²: is the edge real? | 7 | 1 C, 2 D, 3 A | Set an amount. See the one-year pay AVUV earned above bills: what beta predicts, alpha, and the total. |
| Investor philosophies as rules you can test | 7 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 A | Set a yearly profit. See what the holdings' price comes to at SPY's P/E and at Graham's line. |
| Alternatives and buffers: the promise and the price | 7 | 1 B, 2 D, 3 A | Set an amount. See a year of SPY and of HELO, a hedged-equity fund, and what its protection cost. |
| Back-testing honestly: windows, survivors, hindsight | 7 | 1 D, 2 C, 3 B | Tap a window. See what $10,000 grew to in ETFIQ's Strategic 60 benchmark, one rule and four start dates. |
| Capstone: build, benchmark and defend a portfolio | 8 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 D | Tap a window. See what $10,000 grew to in a hypothetical 45/15/30/10 mix and in its benchmark, Strategic 60. |
Trading Basics
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| How an ETF trades: shares, price and NAV | 6 | 1 B, 2 A, 3 B | Tap one of SPY's real marks, or slide your own, to see what you pay against what you get. |
| Market, limit and stop orders: what each does to your price | 7 | 1 C, 2 B, 3 B | Slide the order size to see what one order costs in each fund. |
| The bid-ask spread: the trading cost you don't see | 6 | 1 B, 2 D, 3 B | Slide the amount to compare one round trip of spread with a year of fee. |
| Premium and discount: when price and value split | 6 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 A | Tap one of TINY's real gaps, or slide your own, to see what a gap costs. |
| Liquidity: why trading volume is the wrong clue | 7 | 1 B, 2 A, 3 A | Slide the order size. The quieter fund costs far less to trade. |
| The open, the close and foreign hours: how timing changes your price | 6 | 1 A, 2 A, 3 B | Slide the amount to see each fund's usual gap to NAV in dollars. |
| What a round trip really costs: spread, premium, fee and tax | 7 | 1 A, 2 C, 3 B | Slide the amount to see one year of fee, spread and premium in each fund. |
Trading Products and Costs
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading the trading card: spread, premium and capacity | 7 | 1 D, 2 A, 3 C | Slide the order size to see what ISPY's quote, usual gap and widest gap cost in dollars. |
| Capacity: how much can trade before the price moves | 7 | 1 A, 2 C, 3 B | Slide the order size to see what one order costs at the quote. |
| Who keeps ETF prices tight: APs and market makers | 7 | 1 D, 2 C, 3 B | Tap a firm to see its share of the dollars created and redeemed. |
| Leveraged and inverse ETFs: what the daily promise means | 7 | 1 A, 2 B, 3 D | Slide the amount. Compare the index, 3 times the month, 3 times each day compounded, and the fund. |
| Leveraged decay in numbers: 3 months of 3x funds | 7 | 1 D, 2 C, 3 A | Slide the amount. LABU against its index, 3 times the move, and 3x each day compounded. |
| Covered call ETFs: income now, a cap on the upside | 7 | 1 A, 2 B, 3 D | Slide the amount. Over 3 years XYLD paid cash, kept little price rise and trailed SPY. |
Risk and Execution
| Lesson | Minutes | Answers | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replaying a volatile year: why the swings decide | 7 | 1 C, 2 A, 3 D | Slide the amount to see each result in dollars. |
| Flows and crowding: context, not a signal | 7 | 1 A, 2 D, 3 B | Slide the amount to see each fund's one-month return in dollars. |
| Position sizing: start from the worst fall | 7 | 1 C, 2 C, 3 A | Slide the amount to see what each fund's worst fall would cost in dollars. |
| Fund risks: tracking misses, premium spikes, closures | 7 | 1 B, 2 C, 3 D | Slide the amount to see the tracking gap in dollars. |