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Series 7

There's nothing uniform about securities.

  • Course Length: 6 weeks
  • Course Type: Basic
  • Category:
    • Business and Career Preparation

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Lifted directly from the fine folks at FINRA (ffF), this course is a read better than The Firm, Liar's Poker, and Hunger Games all rolled into one.1 (We’re prepping you for a sales job here).

1Not really better than Liar's Poker. 

This is a test. This is only a test. And it’s not all that relevant in many ways to the things you will do in real life trying to service your customers and follow the rules of whoever is paying for you to take this exam. The goal here is to pass the exam and generally know what you’re talking about. The goal isn’t to know "everything".

Shmoop has written this Series 7 prep guide so that it is (hopefully) massively easily digestible. You might not fall asleep as you read our little story of Gramma Bubbie and her famous The Sauce that becomes a global "must-have" in the fridge and pantry.

We told this ditty as a running story to give context and subtext and, well, text. (We get paid by the word, so like, duh.) Our belief is that if we anchored the yawn-inducing nuggets of knowledge in characters for whom you root, you’d glean a better sense for how the various concepts actually work together and that you'd be able to apply them when curve balls hit your head on the test. That’s our theory, at least. And we figured that if all you wanted was a vocab list, you’d have saved your few bucks and skimmed Investopedia instead. Good people there, at Investopedia Corp. (Lousy golfers though…sorry guys, just keepin' it real.)

Unit Breakdown

1 Series 7 - The Start-Up (Awesome But Optional)

This unit gives you the background on starting a start-up. The Series 7 won't test you on it, but if you don't know this stuff, you don't know Jack...or finance.

2 Series 7 - Growing and Raising (Capital)

In this unit, we'll go over income statements, margins, operating profits, 409a valuations, stocks, and more. Bottom line: we'll talk about the early stages and how to turn an idea into moolah.

3 Series 7 - Going Public

Ah, the IPO. Investing's Holy Grail. An IPO is an initial public offering. In it, the company agrees to conform to "higher" standards of operation, mainly in the form of reporting and accounting compliance. And in return, the company gets to sell stock to the public and list its shares on an exchange like NASDAQ, The American Stock Exchange, or the NYSE, etc. Just like the big boys. 

4 Series 7 - Raising Debt - Securities

Raising capital is one thing, but what about raising debt? In this unit, we'll dig into the two biggies: stocks and bonds.

5 Series 7 - Trading Securities: BUBB Hits the Market

In this unit, we'll see what happens when a company hits the market. Spoiler alert: it's complicated.

6 Series 7 - So Many Options

Options are just that: options. Yep, it's a choice. In this unit, we'll take a look at options, including the strategy around 'em.

7 Series 7 - Financial Analysis: BUBB's First Quarter

Time to get friendly with the numbers. This unit dives into financial analysis, taking a close look at our fictional company's first quarter.

8 Series 7 - Debt, Shmebt - More about Bonds

Debt: it's kind of a big deal. We'll revisit debt in the form of bonds in this unit.

9 Series 7 - Back to the Buyers – Customer Accounts

We've done a number on internal politics, but what about the customer? Can't forget about that guy. We hear he's always right.

10 Series 7 - Trading on Margin

Trading on margin: not just the act of adjust your Microsoft Word settings to make your memo look longer.

11 Series 7 - Taking Orders

Here's the difference between solicited and unsolicited: A solicited deal happens when a broker makes an investment suggestion. An unsolicited deal happens when a customer gets some wild-eyed idea and does it (buys the stock or bond or whatever) on her own. In this unit, we'll talk about taking orders.

12 Series 7 - Exchanges and How They Work

This unit dives into exchanges, a.k.a. those things whose names are long acronyms. From NASDAQ to SHMOOPEX, we've got you covered.

13 Series 7 - Fair Play & Ethics (Pro)

Turns out you can't just do whatever you want as a financial manager. There are things called laws and other things called ethics. This unit focuses on the latter.

14 Series 7 - Finding the Fun in Funds

When choosing funds, it's all about risk tolerance. Is your client a skydiver or a couch surfer?

15 Series 7 - Direct Participation Programs

Really, a Direct Participation Program is just a fancy way of saying "limited partnership." Drilling for oil, mining for gold, investing in heavy construction machinery (c'mon, admit it: you always wanted to own a bulldozer); all of those activities require a lot of money, and they have a lot of tax write-offs that benefit people who already have a lot of money.

16 Series 7 - The Bigger Picture (The Economic One)

Time to zoom out and look at the bigger economic picture: supply and demand, economic measurements, and monetary policy.

17 Series 7 - Advanced Options – Strategy (O.M.A.O.)

We already went through the basics of options. Now it's time to put on our big boy and girl pants and get to the good stuff.

18 Series 7 - Financial Analysis

Back to financial analysis. We're going back to BUBB and taking a look at income statements, balance sheets, and more, as we prepare for (gulp) the audit.

19 Series 7 - Municipal Bonds

The name is Bond. Muni bond. This unit is all about how Uncle Sam gets involved in this whole mess.

20 Series 7 - Taxes (But Fortunately No Death)

Taxes: you know what they are, but can you pass an exam about them? This unit makes sure you can.

21 Series 7 - Retirement Plans – The End

Your job: make sure your clients know that they will live past 65. Probably a lot past it. People suck at planning for retirement. You're here to help.