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Course Catalog - Special Modules

These special modules are brief and tailored for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit. Choose any special module for only $4.99 or just $49.00. for all 22.

1 - Housing
New-home sales were ground-zero for the recession that began in December 2007. Can residential real estate lead the economy back to prosperity? You'll learn the most important guideposts for this important sector and how to use the internet to retrieve key data.
2 - The Federal Reserve & Monetary Policy
The Federal Reserve (the Fed) determines the nation's monetary policy: Whether borrowing is easy or difficult and interest rates are low or high. You'll discover: The Fed's role in post-WWII monetary policy and the post-WWII economy + Current monetary policy + How to go to the Fed's web site to learn what the Fed is doing now.
3 - Interest Rates
You will become familiar with interest rate mechanics, how to use charts to analyze interest-rate developments and go to the web to retrieve interest rate data.
4 - Private Borrowing
Private borrowing and spending's surges and setbacks' to purchase homes, autos, plant and equipment - propel the economy forward or hold it back. You'll retrieve key data from the internet to monitor borrowing's expansion and contraction in the nation's credit markets.
5 - The Federal Deficit
Not all borrowing is private. Everyone is aware that the federal government's tax revenues do not cover its expenditures and that the federal government must borrow funds in order to cover this shortfall. Consequently the federal government has a large outstanding debt. You'll learn about the deficit's impact on the economy generally, and on employment and inflation in particular, and how to track it on the web.
6 - Consumer Demand
In order to investigate consumer demand you will: Use charts to identify the most important trends in consumer confidence, auto sales and consumer credit + Go to the web and retrieve recent data for these indicators + Update charts using data obtained from the web + Learn how to make a reasonable forecast of consumer demand.
7 - The Stock Market
The stock market is a good measure of the economy because it reflects the value of owning America's businesses. This module introduces the forces that drive the stock market. To better understand them you will: Analyze the S&P 500, the stock-market average used by most investment professionals + Explore the relationship between the S&P 500 and corporate earnings + Learn to retrieve from the Web and apply the latest data on stocks, earnings and the P/E's the key ratio between them.
8 - Profits
Learn how to track profits data on the web so that you can stay ahead of today's and tomorrow's stock-market developments. Learn how to ask the right questions regarding profit sustainability. Learn how to use the web to do all this and more.
9 - Profit Margins
Profits = Profit Margins X Sales Volume. The web can track profit margins and their components. This module shows you how.
10 - Output
This module will direct you to the Web sites required to track output, efficiency and costs so that you can understand the forces shaping profits and profit margins. In order to accomplish this you will: Learn how output changes affect productivity, prices and profits + Identify the most important trends in output, efficiency and costs + Go to the Web to retrieve recent data for GDP, industrial production, capacity utilization, productivity, unit labor cost and prices + Use this data to analyze trends in output, efficiency, costs and prices.
11 - Employment
The average workweek and job growth reflect the economy's strength. A healthy economy provides big paychecks. The work week and job growth generally improve during expansion, flatten with boom conditions and plummet in recession. You'll learn how to use the web to track the important employment data.
12 - Productivity & Costs
This module will direct you to the Web sites required to track output, efficiency and costs so that you can understand the forces shaping profits and profit margins. In order to accomplish this you will: Learn how output changes affect productivity, prices and profits + Identify the most important trends in output, efficiency and costs + Go to the Web to retrieve recent data for GDP, industrial production, capacity utilization, productivity, unit labor cost and prices.
13 - Producer Prices
Producer prices were once referred to as wholesale prices. In this module you use the Web to retrieve and analyze unit labor cost and prices and make a reasonable forecast of their outlook.
14 - Consumer Prices
Consumer prices are the last link on the output, costs, prices chain. You'll learn how to track them on the web and update charts that follow their performance.
15 - Capital-Goods Industries
This module examines business purchases of plant and equipment. In the course of your investigation of business capital expenditures you will: Familiarize yourself with the statistical indicator known as "new orders for nondefense capital goods" and its cyclical record + Learn why business invests in new capital goods + Go to the web and retrieve recent data for these indicators + Update the charts using data obtained from the web + Learn how to evaluate recent data in order to understand current developments and have a reasonable grasp of possible future developments.
16 - Inventories
Inventories are stocks of goods on hand: raw materials, goods in process, or finished products. Individual businesses use them to bring stability to their operations, and yet you'll see that they actually have a destabilizing effect on the business cycle. This module assists your understanding by familiarizing you with the applicable charts and web sources.
17 - Outlook
This module summarizes your work thus far by asking you to build your own forecast based on the evidence gathered in the earlier modules.
18 - International Accounts - The U.S. and the Global Economy
Previous modules introduced the domestic economy. This module acquaints you with America's economic relationship to the rest of the world. As you know from general news accounts, this relationship has two important aspects: America's balance of trade deficit with the rest of the world and America's growing international indebtedness to the rest of the world. The news accounts tell you these aspects are linked, but the connection may not be clear to you. This module should help clarify matters showing you how to: Construct an international account for the U.S. economy + Interpret the U.S. International Account + Understand the relationship between the U.S. balance of trade deficit and U.S. international indebtedness + Use the web to obtain U.S. International Account data.
19 - Foreign Exchange - US & the Global Economy
Module 19 builds on Module 18 by showing you how to: Understand the relationship between the U.S. dollar's value and the U.S. International Account + Interpret changes in the U.S. dollar's value against other currencies + Use the web to obtain quotes of the U.S. dollar's value in other currencies.
20 - Your Portfolio of Stocks and Mutual Funds
This module will provide you with tools that will assist your selection of stocks and mutual funds. You will: Use the Web to discover which industries's and firms's earnings have grown most rapidly + Create your own simulated stock portfolio so that you can compare the performance of stocks you select to the performance of the best-known stock-market averages + Use the Web to evaluate mutual-fund performance + Select and add mutual funds to your simulated portfolio to compare their performance with the stock-market averages.
21 - Options and Futures
This module's first section will introduce options investing and the second section will introduce futures. In them you will: Become acquainted with options and futures + Learn how to use the Web to obtain commodity-market and futures-market data + Learn how to use the web to select options and futures + Select a number of options and commodities on which to simulate an investment in the options and futures markets + Decide on whether put or call options best suit your stock-market assessment + Decide on whether you wish to go long or short based on work thus far.
22 - The Bond and Money Markets
This module introduces the markets for corporate and municipal (state and local government) bonds and Treasury bills. You will: Learn the relationship between risk and yield for various maturities and issuers and the possibilities for capital gains and losses for a variety of instruments and use the Web to obtain bond-market and money-market data for a variety of issues and maturities.
Select all for $49.00



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