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Accounting & Finance FinTech and Financial Analytics

Certificate for Module (Agentic Finance with OpenClaw for Investment Applications)
證書(單元 : OpenClaw代理型金融於投資上的應用)

Course Code
FN182A
Application Code
2455-FN182A
Credit
6
Study mode
Part-time
Start Date
02 Nov 2026 (Mon)
Duration
30 hours
Language
English
Course Fee
HK$9,000
Deadline on 30 Oct 2026 (Fri)
Enquiries
2867-8322
2861-0278
Apply Now

Highlights

This programme aims to equip students with the essential knowledge and skills to build and apply the investment agents in equity, foreign exchange, commodities and crypto trading. It provides an overview of agentic finance, data infrastructure, OpenClaw, Generative AI tools, and execution and backtesting of investment agents. Hands-on deployment of OpenClaw and case studies on research agents, portfolio construction agents and investment agents will also be examined in the programme.
 

Programme Details

On completion of the programme, students should be able to

  1. explain the transaction mechanics of agentic finance with OpenClaw and agent architectures;
  2. examine data integration mechanisms for investment agents;
  3. develop investment agents using OpenClaw; and
  4. apply the investment agents to equity, foreign exchange, commodities and crypto trading.

 

Syllabus

1. Foundations of Agentic Finance
  • Overview of Large Language Models (LLMs)
  • Spectrum from workflows to fully autonomous agents
  • Agents vs models vs bots vs traditional quantitative trading systems
  • Current development of agentic finance and vendor hype

 

2. Agent Architectures and Patterns
  • Single-agent, multi-agent and orchestrator / worker patterns, React user interfaces (UI) ReAct, plan-and-execute, reflection
  • Agent skill convention and the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
  • Framework comparison: OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, LangGraph, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents SDK, etc.

 

3. Data Infrastructure for Investment Agents
  • Market data, alternative data and on-chain / oracle data as a first-class data type
  • Vendor selection, latency, reliability and provenance tracking
  • Retrieval-augmented generation patterns for filings, transcripts and Information Memorandum (IM)

 

4. Building Your First Agent
  • Hands-on deployment of OpenClaw as a self-hosted gateway and writing a SKILL.md
  • The same task implemented side by side in OpenClaw, LangGraph and CrewAI
  • Cost and latency budgeting, defending against prompt injection

 

5. Research Agent: Equities and Tokens
  • Full workflow from thesis generation to data gathering to write-up
  • Equity skills (fundamentals, news, filings, transcripts) and token skills (tokenomics, on-chain holders, treasury, protocol revenue)
  • Multi-step reasoning, critique loops and failure points of the agent

 

6. Portfolio Construction Agent
  • Objective functions, constraints, factor risk and covariance estimation
  • Rebalancing logic, turnover budgets and transaction-cost models
  • Portfolio construction agent vs. traditional optimisation approaches

 

7. Execution, Trading and Backtesting
  • Order types, microstructure, execution algorithms, signal-to-trade orchestration
  • Backtesting methodology: walk-forward validation, look-ahead bias, survivorship bias
  • Cross-asset extension to foreign exchange, commodities, and crypto (Centralised Exchanges (CEX) vs Decentralised Exchanges (DEX) execution)

 

8. Evaluation, Monitoring and Drift
  • Building golden datasets and evaluation harnesses for finance tasks
  • Observability, replay, prompt regression testing
  • Detecting model drift: offline benchmarks vs shadow mode vs limited deployment

 

9. Risk, Governance and Regulation
  • The big four agent risks: hallucination, data leakage, over-automation, prompt injection
  • Hong Kong regulatory landscape - Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Asia-Pacific context – Monetary Authority of Singapore
  • European Union Artificial Intelligence (EU AI) Act extraterritorial scope, designing compliance checkpoints inside an agentic workflow

 

AWARD

Upon successful completion of the programme, students who have passed the assessment with attendance of no less than 70% will be awarded within the HKU system through HKU SPACE a “Certificate for Module (Agentic Finance with OpenClaw for Investment Applications).”

Type of Assessment

Description

Weighting

Continuous Assessment

One 3-hour individual in-class exercise: Students are required to complete the following tasks during lessons: 1) identify prototype in investment workflows, 2) examine data integration with OpenClaw tools and 3) build the initial version of agent using Gen AI tools. Students are expected to apply critical thinking in using OpenClaw to produce a report (1000 words).

 

50%

Final Assessment

A 20-minute group project presentation (at least 10 slides) (3-5 students per group): The presentation covers agent architectures, data infrastructure for the agent, hands-on deployment of OpenClaw, execution, trading and backtesting of the investment agent and evaluation of the agent’s performance. Students are required to submit the PPT slides after the presentation.

 

50%

 

 

Total: 100%

Application Code 2455-FN182A Apply Online Now
Apply Online Now

Duration
  • The programme consists of ten sessions, each lasting 3 hours.
Venue

Teacher Information

Mr. David Ching

CFA

Background

David Ching, CFA, is the Investment Director and Head of Research at Animoca Brands, Vice President of the CFA Society Hong Kong, and Founding Chairman of the AI, Web3 & FinTech Committee. A seasoned investor and business builder, David brings over two decades of experience spanning traditional finance and emerging technologies, with deep expertise and distinctive insights in artificial intelligence, digital assets, and energy transition.

David graduated from the University of Oxford with First Class Honours on a full scholarship, and is Honorary President of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Hong Kong. Over his career, he has held senior roles including Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager at leading financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Macquarie, and Polymer Capital. His exceptional track record has earned him multiple Best Analyst awards from Institutional Investor and recognition by StarMine as one of Asia’s top stock pickers.

He is a regular speaker and convener on AI adoption in financial services, agentic infrastructure, regulatory frameworks for digital assets, and the convergence of TradFi and Web3. David is committed to building the bridges — technical, regulatory, and human — that allow institutions to navigate this transition with clarity.

Fee

Course Fee
  • HK$9,000

Entry Requirements

Applicants shall hold an Advanced Diploma, a Higher Diploma or an Associate Degree awarded by a recognised institution where the language of teaching and assessment is English. Those with a background in business, accounting, finance, economics, mathematics, statistics, science, engineering, IT or computer science would have an advantage.

 

Applicants with other qualifications will be considered on individual merit.

Apply

Online Application Apply Now

Application Form Download Application Form

Enrolment Method
Payment Method
1. Cash, EPS, WeChat Pay Or Alipay

Course fees can be paid by cash, EPS, WeChat Pay or Alipay at any HKU SPACE Enrolment Centres.

2. Cheque Or Bank draft

Course fees can also be paid by crossed cheque or bank draft made payable to “HKU SPACE”. Please specify the programme title(s) for application and applicant’s name. You may either:

  • bring the completed form(s), together with the appropriate course or application fees in the form of a cheque, and any required supporting documents to any of the HKU SPACE enrolment centres;
  • or mail the above documents to any of the HKU SPACE Enrolment Centres, specifying “Course Application” on the envelope. HKU SPACE will not be responsible for any loss of personal information and payment sent by mail.
3. VISA/Mastercard

Applicants may also pay the course fee by VISA or Mastercard, including the “HKU SPACE Mastercard”, at any HKU SPACE enrolment centres. Holders of the HKU SPACE Mastercard can enjoy a 10-month interest-free instalment period for courses with a tuition fee worth a minimum of HK$2,000; however, the course applicant must also be the cardholder himself/herself. For enquiries, please contact our staff at any enrolment centres.

4. Online Payment

Online application / enrolment is offered for most open admission courses (enrolled on first come, first served basis) and selected award-bearing programmes. Application fees and course fees of these programmes/courses can be settled by using "PPS by Internet" (not available via mobile phones), VISA or Mastercard. In addition to the aforesaid online payment channels, new and continuing students of award-bearing programmes with available online service, they may also pay their course fees by Online WeChat Pay, Online Alipay or Faster Payment System (FPS). Please refer to Enrolment Methods - Online Enrolment  for details.

Notes

  • If the programme/course is starting within five working days, application by post is not recommended to avoid any delays. Applicants are advised to enrol in person at HKU SPACE Enrolment Centres and avoid making cheque payment under this circumstance.

  • Fees paid are not refundable except under very exceptional circumstances (e.g. course cancellation due to insufficient enrolment), subject to the School’s discretion. In exceptional cases where a refund is approved, fees paid by cash, EPS, WeChat Pay, Alipay, cheque, FPS or PPS by Internet will be reimbursed by a cheque, and fees paid by credit card will be reimbursed to the credit card account used for payment. 

  • In addition to the published fees, there may be additional costs associated with individual programmes. Please refer to the relevant course brochures or direct any enquiries to the relevant programme team for details.
  • Fees and places on courses cannot be transferrable from one applicant to another. Once accepted onto a course, the student may not change to another course without approval from HKU SPACE. A processing fee of HK$120 will be levied on each approved transfer.
  • HKU SPACE will not be responsible for any loss of payment, receipt, or personal information sent by mail.
  • For payment certification, please submit a completed form, a sufficiently stamped and self-addressed envelope, and a crossed cheque for HK$30 per copy made payable to “HKU SPACE” to any of our enrolment centres.