# ETFIQ Academy for Teachers: Lessons and Answer Keys

> Every ETFIQ Academy lesson with its answer key and a classroom activity. Free, no sign-in, built on real ETF data. Free, on real ETF data.

Data as of Nov 11, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night.

## ETFIQ Academy for teachers: lessons and answer keys

Data as of Nov 11, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night.

As of Nov 11, 2026, ETFIQ Academy has 54 free lessons with answer keys and classroom activities, no sign-in needed.

### 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. |

### Where to next

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Source: ETFIQ, independent ETF data. Recomputed nightly from public filings and prices.
Cite: ETFIQ, ETFIQ Academy for teachers: lessons and answer keys, data as of Nov 11, 2026. https://etfiq.com/academy/teachers/
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