Investment Analyst Foundations
Sequenced like a foundational investment-analyst curriculum -- quantitative methods first, behavioral guardrails, then financial reporting, equity, fixed income, derivatives, alternatives, professional ethics, and portfolio management. A core analyst foundation built for self-study learners pacing toward a comprehensive analyst footing.
Who it’s for: Self-study learners building a comprehensive investment-analyst foundation — a useful companion to the analyst concepts also covered on professional finance exams, though it is general education, not a credential study program.
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Personal Finance → Value Investing
Microeconomics for Investors
Macroeconomics for Investors
Reading Financial Statements
- The Income Statement: How Much Did They Earn? — How to read an income statement: the financial statement that shows how much a company earned or lost over a period — revenue, costs, and profit, explained.
- The Balance Sheet: What Do They Own and Owe? — What a company owns, owes, and leaves for shareholders: why assets always equal liabilities plus equity, how to spot growth funded by debt, and three lines most readers skip.
- Cash Flow: Follow the Money — Cash flow is the hardest statement to fake: the three sections and what healthy looks like, the free-cash-flow formula, and how rising earnings can hide falling cash.
- EBITDA: What It Is and Isn't
Financial Accounting
- Accrual vs Cash Accounting
- Depreciation: Spreading the Cost of Assets — Depreciation spreads an asset's cost across the years it earns: the straight-line formula, why it is a non-cash expense, and what EBITDA hides by leaving it out.
- Revenue Recognition: The ASC 606 Five-Step Model
- Inventory: FIFO vs. LIFO and Why It Matters
- DuPont Analysis: Decomposing Return on Equity
- EPS and Dilution: The Most Watched Number on Wall Street
- Deferred Taxes: Why Tax Expense Differs from Taxes Paid
- Lease Accounting: The Hidden Debt That Isn't Hidden Anymore — Lease accounting under ASC 842: operating vs finance leases, right-of-use assets and lease liabilities, a worked rent capitalization, and where IFRS 16 differs.
Intermediate Accounting for Analysts
Understanding Valuation
- What is a P/E Ratio? — What is a P/E ratio? The price-to-earnings ratio shows how much investors pay for $1 of a company's profit — the most-used valuation metric, explained simply.
- EV/EBITDA: The Professional's Metric — Why professionals price on EV/EBITDA rather than P/E: how enterprise value neutralizes debt and taxes, what typical sector ranges look like, and why no band is universal.
- Price-to-Book: Asset Value — What price-to-book compares and when it actually works: what a reading below 1.0 means, why banks are the classic case, and how to tell a bargain from a value trap.
- Cost of Capital: What Discount Rate to Use
- DCF: What Is a Company Really Worth?
DCF Valuation in Practice
Understanding Bonds and Fixed Income
- What Is a Bond? — What is a bond? A bond is a loan to a company or government that pays you fixed interest (the coupon) and returns your principal at maturity. Explained simply.
- Price vs Yield: The Seesaw Relationship
- Duration: Measuring Interest Rate Risk
- Credit Spreads: Pricing Default Risk
- Capital Structure: Who Gets Paid First?
Capital Markets
Derivatives Beyond Options
Options Fundamentals
Alternative Investments: Beyond Stocks and Bonds
Leveraged Buyout Analysis
Venture Capital & Startup Investing
BDC Investing -- Public Access to Private Credit
Real Estate Investing
- Cap Rates and Property Valuation
- Building a Real Estate Allocation — Building a real estate allocation: why your home does not count, what a 10% REIT sleeve does to a portfolio, and where REIT income yield comes from.
Professional Ethics: How Investment Professionals Are Supposed to Behave
- Fiduciary Duty: The Client Comes First
- Conflicts of Interest and Fair Dealing — Conflicts of interest in practice: why disclosure is the floor, not the cure, what front-running looks like, and the avoid-disclose-never-exploit discipline.
- Material Nonpublic Information and the Insider-Trading Line — Where the insider-trading line sits: material AND nonpublic, how tippee liability reaches beyond insiders, and why the lawful mosaic theory is different.