What is quant finance?Beginner series
From what quant finance is to simulating thousands of futures. Time, risk and probability, then all three together.
Quant finance you can play with
Markets are just probability in motion.
Once you can see the math, you can start to play the game. Animated lessons, live simulations and a paper-money market, built around The Money Loop.
20 episodes and 24 simulations, free and with no account needed
Four ways into the loop,
from first idea to real markets.
Start anywhere. Every part links to the others, so an idea you watch is an idea you can test.
- LessonsWatch an idea click, then check you've really got it. 20 animated episodes in 4 tracks Key ideas, transcripts and quick checksStart learning
- The labDrag a dial and watch the math answer back. 24 simulations, intro to advanced From compound interest to Black–ScholesOpen the lab
- Paper moneyTest a portfolio on twenty years of real markets. 90 real assets across ten markets Strategies, frontiers, factors and stress testsBuild a portfolio
- Your tutorAsk anything, at your level, whenever you're stuck. Friendly answers in plain language Points you to the lesson or simulationAsk the Loop
Myths, meet mathStop guessing.
Stop guessing.
Start seeing the odds.
Six things almost everyone believes about money, and what the numbers actually say. Pick one to see it.
The methodFive steps, one loop.
Five steps, one loop.
Every idea builds on the last.
Learn a concept, see it move, play with it, apply it to real markets, then teach it back. Each lap makes the next idea easier.
Try it now: run 360 futures
Every line is one possible path for $100 over three years, all with the same average growth. Turn up the volatility and watch the spread of outcomes, and your odds of ending below where you started, change in real time.
360 possible futures for $100, three years out
Same average growth in every run. At 25% volatility, 40% of these futures end below $100, and the middle 90% land between $51 and $227. The dark line is the one path you'd actually live through.
Twenty episodes, four tracks
Every lesson pairs an episode from the channel with Niko's key ideas, a quick check, and a simulation to practice on.
What is quant finance?
Brownian motion explainedThe math of randomness
Random walks, expected value, volatility and log returns: the building blocks every pricing model starts from.
What is correlation, really?Correlation and portfolios
How assets move together, why diversification works, when it fails, and how portfolio risk is really measured.
Normal distribution in financeDistributions and tail risk
The bell curve, why markets break it, and the rare events that matter more than every normal day combined.
Paper money, real history
$10,000 invested the month before the 2008 crash. All in stocks, or mixed with bonds. The investment simulator lets you build any portfolio from 90 real funds, stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and crypto, test trading rules on it, and replay it through every crash and recovery since 2005.
100% S&P 500
$69,774
worst fall -51%
60% stocks, 40% bonds
$43,815
worst fall -27%
Real monthly prices with dividends reinvested, rebalanced yearly. Past performance doesn't predict future returns.
The lab
24 simulations you can drag, dial and re-run, from compound interest to Black–Scholes. Some rebuild an episode's big idea; others go further.
Open the labMoney that grows and shrinks
Probability and chance
Risk and portfolios
Markets, models and derivatives
Ask the Loop
A friendly AI tutor for anything in quant or personal finance. It explains at your level and points you to the episode or simulation that shows the idea best.
New episodes land on the channel first. Subscribe to get the next concept before it arrives here.
The Money Loop on YouTube