Eight fascinating math and investment games 

Benjamin Franklin once said that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. We go a step further and say that financial literacy is the key to unlocking the mysteries of investing. But above all, it is the beginning of self-empowerment through knowledge, enabling you to make well-informed, long term investment decisions which will impact every facet of your present and future financial well-being.

There is no better feeling than when you take charge of your own future...

We have developed our financial literacy program as a series of games built around interactive Excel Workbooks. You can only play these games in a unique arena called the Mind Gym, a cerebral place where you can exercise your gray cells and learn all about financial literacy in an interactive, rewarding and enjoyable way.

Enter the arena of Financial Literacy!

In this module, we will take you through a journey of imagining and visualising the relationship between risk and return, these quarrelsome and often misunderstood siblings of the investment world. You will see them in an entirely different light by the time you reach the end of this enlightening trip!

Here we discover the multi-faceted nature of this relationship through imagination, visualisation, simulation and analysis. We learn that risk and return are euphemisms for fear and greed – perhaps the most primordial of human sentiments – and that far from being a scary monster, risk is, in fact, the driver of return: “Without risk, there will be little or no return”, our resident Professor tells us! He also explains that risk is best viewed through a prism of statistics and event probability; as such, it can be visualised as a “range of probable return outcomes around an average value”.

Understanding Asset Classes continues the theme of diversification by focusing on the building blocks of investing, namely the many types of “egg baskets” and their classification and characteristics. These include cash, stocks, bonds, property and commodities and more "exotic" and less tangible ones such as options and futures.

We focus on stocks & bonds and examines their behavioural traits, including historical risk and return profiles, factors which make them "tick", their sensitivity to market and economic events, and the unique "inverse" relationship between them which makes these instruments such amicable partners in the process of portfolio construction. We discover that far from being homogeneous groups, stocks and bonds come in many shades of grey and their spectrum of risk and return is wider and more diverse than could be imagined. We also put "property" under the microscope, following Signore Medici's own footsteps as he applies his tried and tested criteria to selecting an investment property to buy!

To add to your learning experience, in this package you will also have access to our "Learning Lounge", which is designed for those who wish to delve deeper into a subject and get to know its nuts and bolts, so to speak!

Understanding Diversification delves into the simple but wise age-old parable of not putting all one’s eggs in a basket. But are all eggs and all baskets created equal and how many eggs should we put in a basket anyway?

To explore and answer these questions, we will trace the steps of a mysterious medieval figure whose fortunes have finally taken a favourable turn and who now has a windfall to invest in the property market. We begin with the mathematics of a simple diversification strategy for our daring investor and progress to examine event probability using a game of dice, elaborating on the deeper nuances of diversification and their implications for modern-day portfolio construction and management.  

To add to your learning experience, in this package you will also have access to our "Learning Lounge", which is designed for those who wish to delve deeper into a subject and get to know its nuts and bolts, so to speak!

Is the glass half full or half empty? That is the question! 

Understanding Risk Profiling examines the diversity of human perception and particularly the paradox that while the same investment may appeal to one investor it may be equally unattractive to another. Personal preferences play a key role in assessing investment prospects and must be superimposed on the already complex relationship between risk and return. 

This course probes this seemingly contradictory aspect of human nature through principles which were originally developed by the 18th Century Swiss mathematician and physicist Daniel Bernoulli using an imaginary game of chance he called the “Saint Petersburg Paradox”. You can play a similar game to find out your risk score and to discover whether your profile is what you thought it would be!

To add to your learning experience, in this package you will also have access to our "Learning Lounge", which is designed for those who wish to delve deeper into a subject and get to know its nuts and bolts, so to speak!