Spring 2027

Investment Theory

Investment Theory covers securities market structure, portfolio construction principles, and models of the tradeoff between risk and expected return.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jeremy Whitish3.6/5William Diamond

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.51 GPA, 75.8% A/AB (n=186 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.41 GPA, 64.4% A/AB (n=253 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.44 GPA, 65.8% A/AB (n=219 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Solve real-world investment problems

  • Formulate the trade-off between risk and return

  • Describe the distribution of returns on broad asset classes

  • Identify investors’ risk preferences

  • Use portfolio optimization techniques to develop an asset allocation for an investor

  • Examine factor models of returns

  • Compare different equilibrium security pricing models

  • Debate market efficiency

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

FINANCE/​ECON 300, (MATH 213 or 222) and (GEN BUS 307, 317, 656,ACT SCI 654, 655,ECON 400, 410,STAT/​MATH 310,STAT 312, or333 or concurrent enrollment) or declared in undergraduate Business Exchange program

ECON/FINANCE 320 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.00/5 from 1 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2025: 3.47 GPA, 69.1% A/AB (n=110 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.42 GPA, 62.2% A/AB (n=111 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2026: 3.45 GPA, 69.4% A/AB (n=108 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JEREMY WHITISH is recorded teaching in Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

WILLIAM DIAMOND is recorded teaching in Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 003Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 002Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 004Classroom Instruction0 / 600
LEC 005Classroom Instruction0 / 600
LEC 001Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 003Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 002Online (some classroom)0 / 600
LEC 004Classroom Instruction0 / 100
LEC 005Classroom Instruction0 / 600

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.51 GPA, 75.8% A/AB (n=186 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.41 GPA, 64.4% A/AB (n=253 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.44 GPA, 65.8% A/AB (n=219 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Structure and functioning of securities markets
  • Principles of portfolio construction
  • Models of the tradeoff between risk and expected return
  • Factor models of returns
  • Market efficiency

Skills

  • Solving real-world investment problems and applying portfolio construction principles.
  • Formulating the trade-off between risk and return using established models.
  • Using portfolio optimization techniques to develop asset allocations for investors.
  • Comparing different equilibrium security pricing models.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.08 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ECON/FINANCE 320 · Spring 2027

Investment Theory

Recorded 2026-10-14
ECON/FINANCE 320 · Spring 2027

Investment Theory

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
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    "offering_id": "1274:233:003043",
    "course_id": "ECON/FINANCE 320",
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    "title": "Investment Theory",
    "credits_min": 3,
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    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
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    "course_id": "ECON/FINANCE 320",
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    "source_course_id": "003043",
    "source_subject_id": "296",
    "title": "Investment Theory",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
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]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
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  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "f45909553022e5d4c5893d6b274e8579d536a7685530df9e1fbc56630f0594a5",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}