A path from first principles to professional analysis

What finance is for, how the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement work and connect, and the business economics behind margins, break-even and working capital.

• Explain the difference between profit, cash and value
• Build and read the three financial statements and trace how they connect
• Calculate margins, break-even points and the cash conversion cycle
• Measure growth and returns correctly

Career paths:Financial analyst,Corporate finance and FP&A,Credit and banking analyst,Investment and equity research analyst,Finance foundations

Compounding, discounting, annuities, loans, NPV, IRR and dated cash flows — built step by step in a live worksheet, with the same functions you use at work.

• Move any cash flow through time with compounding and discounting
• Compare loans and deposits using effective annual rates
• Value annuities and perpetuities, and build an amortization schedule
• Evaluate investments with NPV and IRR — and know when IRR misleads

Career paths:Financial analyst,Corporate finance and FP&A,Credit and banking analyst,Investment and equity research analyst,Finance foundations

Builds on: Finance Fundamentals

Common-size and trend analysis, profitability and return ratios, DuPont, liquidity, efficiency, leverage, cash flow and earnings quality — practised on three years of a retailer's statements.

• Restate statements as common-size and trend analyses
• Calculate and interpret profitability, return, liquidity, efficiency and leverage ratios
• Decompose ROE with DuPont and explain what changed
• Judge cash flow and earnings quality and normalise one-off items

Career paths:Financial analyst,Corporate finance and FP&A,Credit and banking analyst,Investment and equity research analyst,Finance foundations

Builds on: Finance Fundamentals

Model structure and reference discipline, revenue and cost drivers, working capital, PP&E and debt schedules, a fully linked three-statement model with a revolver, checks, scenario switches, sensitivity tables and model review.

• Structure a model into inputs, calculations and outputs
• Forecast revenue, costs and supporting schedules from drivers
• Link the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow so the model balances
• Add checks and scenario switches that make a model trustworthy

Career paths:Financial analyst,Corporate finance and FP&A

Builds on: Finance Fundamentals, Financial Statement Analysis

Free cash flow, forecasting, WACC, terminal value, mid-year discounting, the bridge from enterprise value to value per share, and relative valuation with multiples and trading comparables — each step built and checked in a live model.

• Choose between intrinsic and relative valuation and explain enterprise vs equity value
• Derive and forecast unlevered free cash flow from operating assumptions
• Estimate a WACC with CAPM and market-value weights
• Build a DCF with Gordon-growth or exit-multiple terminal values, mid-year discounting and a sensitivity table

Career paths:Financial analyst,Investment and equity research analyst

Builds on: Time Value of Money, Financial Statement Analysis

Capital budgeting, cost of capital, capital structure, payout policy and working capital decisions.

• Build a project's incremental after-tax cash flows and judge it by NPV, EAA and the profitability index
• Find a project's break-even volume and price and test its sensitivity
• Estimate a cost of debt and a project beta, and turn them into a hurdle rate
• Show how leverage, payouts and working capital policy change EPS, value and cash needs

Career paths:Corporate finance and FP&A

Builds on: Time Value of Money

Budgets, forecasts, variance analysis, rolling forecasts, KPIs and management reporting.

• Build a phased revenue budget and a headcount cost plan from operating drivers
• Calculate and explain favourable and adverse variances, including price, volume and mix
• Flex a budget to actual activity to separate volume effects from efficiency
• Maintain a rolling forecast and choose KPIs that measure performance

Career paths:Corporate finance and FP&A

Builds on: Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Modeling

Equity research skills: returns, risk, equity valuation, earnings models and investment write-ups.

• Measure total shareholder return and tell arithmetic from geometric mean returns
• Quantify risk with volatility, maximum drawdown and beta, and turn beta into a CAPM required return
• Forecast earnings per share from segment volume, price and margin drivers
• Value a share with P/E and PEG multiples and explain where they mislead

Career paths:Investment and equity research analyst

Builds on: Time Value of Money, Financial Statement Analysis

Bond pricing, yields, duration, convexity, the yield curve and credit spreads (including sukuk structures).

• Read a bond's terms and turn them into its cash flows and the cash price of a trade
• Price a bond from its yield and solve for yield to maturity from its price
• Calculate accrued interest and move between clean and dirty prices
• Measure interest-rate risk with Macaulay and modified duration and estimate price changes

Career paths:Credit and banking analyst

Builds on: Time Value of Money

How banks earn money and manage risk, credit analysis, and corporate treasury. Examples are educational, not bank-specific rules.

• Explain how a bank earns net interest income, fees and absorbs credit losses
• Calculate net interest margin, cost of funds and the core bank performance ratios from a balance sheet
• Price a loan from funding cost, operating cost, expected loss and a capital charge
• Assess a corporate borrower and estimate expected loss from PD, LGD and EAD

Career paths:Credit and banking analyst

Builds on: Time Value of Money, Financial Statement Analysis

Technical questions, timed assessments, modeling tests and case interviews for corporate finance, banking and FP&A roles.

• Give structured spoken answers to the standard accounting, valuation and enterprise-value questions
• Trace any transaction through the income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet, with the balance check
• Solve DCF, WACC and equity-bridge calculations quickly and avoid the classic traps
• Plan, build and check a small three-statement model against a case pack in a fixed time

Career paths:Financial analyst

Builds on: Time Value of Money, Financial Statement Analysis, Company Valuation