Financial Data Professional (FDP)Earners of this designation have demonstrated specialized knowledge of alternative data, machine learning, & artificial intelligence applications on the investment process. Earners understand the risks & rewards of alternative data for investment decisions, can assess the accuracy of machine learning models & apply data science concepts. Earners have developed knowledge of programming, quantitative methods, classification vs regression analysis & visualizing machine learning model performance.FDP Financial Data Professional Exams 2026 Topics1. Introduction to Data ScienceData Analytic ThinkingBusiness Problems and Data Science SolutionsMachine Learning FundamentalsStatistical LearningAssessing Model Accuracy2. Linear & Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Regularization & Time SeriesRegression & ClassificationLogistic Regression & SVMsRegularization & Model SelectionTime Series Analysis & Forecasting3. Decision Trees, Supervised Segmentation, & Ensemble MethodsDecision Trees & Supervised LearningEnsemble Learning (Bagging, Boosting, Random Forests)4. Classification, Clustering, & Naïve BayesNearest Neighbor & ClusteringProbabilistic Models & Naïve Bayes5. Neural Networks & Reinforcement LearningNeural Networks & Deep LearningGradient Descent & OptimizationApplications in Finance & Reinforcement Learning6. Performance Evaluation, Back-testing, & False DiscoveriesModel Performance MetricsModel InterpretabilityFalse Discoveries & Statistical Pitfall
What you'll learn
understand the risks and rewards of alternative data
assess the accuracy of machine learning models
apply data science concepts to business problems
execute linear and logistic regression analyses
utilize decision trees and ensemble methods in financial contexts
evaluate model performance and interpret results
Course objectives
prepare for the FDP Financial Data Professional Exams
develop specialized knowledge in data science and finance
gain practical skills in machine learning and statistical analysis