Marty wrote with an awesome tip for those interested in learning how to invest:

Lifehacker has a great link to free online investing classes at Morningstar. I signed up and have taken a couple. They are not bad at all — I wish my college had offered courses like this. They are not overviews, but get into the nitty gritty.

The Morningstar classes include information on:

  • Stocks — “Get in on the ground floor of stock investing by learning how stocks work and what it means to be a shareholder.”
  • Mutual Funds — “Build a solid foundation to start your mutual-fund investing off right.”
  • Bonds — “Learn the basics of bonds from coupons to collateral.”
  • Portfolios — “Learn the essentials of building an investment portfolio: how to set goals, gauge your risk, set your asset allocation, and choose investments.”

There are 172 different courses in all. Some caveats: registration is required, and your browser must allow user-initiated popups. (The classes run in popup windows.) Based on the feedback I’ve seen, these factors are minor. This looks like an excellent way to further your understanding of investing. Morningstar is even offering incentives for users to take the classes:

Investing Classroom is better than you remember school ever being. You learn at your own pace. You take short quizzes that reinforce your learning and you accumulate credits toward great free gifts from our rewards catalog.

For more information, including a complete list of available courses, check out Wise Bread. And thanks to Jeremy at Gen X Finance, who originally broke this story.

[Morningstar: Morningstar Investing Classroom]

This article is about Education, Investing, Tools  Tuesday, 9th January 2007 (by J.D. Roth)