26 phases
Finance
Accounting through valuation and risk — the analyst core.
From Lund LUSEM's Foundations of Finance, Theory of Corporate Finance and Financial Valuation, and KTH's Corporate Finance & Markets (ME2721), Financial Mathematics (SF2701) and Portfolio Theory (SF2942).
Phase 1
Accounting & Financial Statements
Read the three statements, trace a transaction, decompose returns.
Phase 2
Time Value of Money
Discounting, NPV, IRR and payback — the decision rules of corporate finance.
Phase 3
Corporate Finance
What to invest in, how to fund it, how much to pay out.
Phase 4
Financial Markets & Instruments
Bonds, duration, yield curves, equities and market efficiency.
Phase 5
Portfolio Theory
Diversification, the efficient frontier, CAPM and factor models.
Phase 6
Derivatives & Pricing
Forwards, futures, options, swaps, no-arbitrage and the Greeks.
Phase 7
Valuation
DCF, multiples and precedent transactions — and defending the assumptions.
Phase 8
M&A Mechanics
Accretion/dilution, synergies, cash vs. stock, diligence and defences.
Phase 9
Comparable Companies & Precedent Transactions
Building a comps table, choosing multiples, and reading precedent deals.
Phase 10
LBO Model Construction
Sources & uses, debt schedule, cash sweep, returns waterfall and attribution.
Phase 11
Risk Management
VaR, expected shortfall, stress testing and the Basel framework.
Phase 12
Financial Analysis & Ratio Diagnostics
Turn statements into a diagnosis: margins, capital turns, working capital and debt capacity.
Phase 13
Bond Markets & Fixed Income Valuation
Price a bond, read a yield curve, and translate rate moves into price moves.
Phase 14
Equity Markets & Stock Valuation
Dividend discount, earnings power, and what a multiple is actually saying.
Phase 15
Capital Structure & Payout Policy
Modigliani–Miller, the tax shield, and why dividends and buybacks are signals.
Phase 16
Foreign Exchange & International Finance
Quotes, parity conditions, hedging, and cross-border cash flow valuation.
Phase 17
Corporate Finance — The Berk & DeMarzo Lens
Investment, financing and payout decisions through the leading corporate-finance textbook and Graham's reality check.
Phase 18
Earnings Quality & Forensic Accounting
Where management paints the picture, and how the cash flow statement gives it away.
Phase 19
Payout Policy & Capital Returns
Dividends, buybacks, signalling and the excess-cash decision tree.
Phase 20
Management Accounting & Cost Transformation
ABC, cost allocation, price/volume/mix variance, transfer pricing and break-even.
Phase 21
Agency Theory — Ownership Apart From Control
Why managers do not automatically act for owners, what that costs, and how contracts, debt and payout push behaviour back into line.
Phase 22
Corporate Governance — Internal and External Mechanisms
Boards, incentives, ownership structures and market discipline: the machinery that makes agency costs bearable, and how Sweden does it differently.
Phase 23
Information Asymmetry, Signalling and Disclosure
Why issuing equity is expensive, why disclosure lowers the cost of capital, and why credit ratings shape capital structure more than any textbook optimum.
Phase 24
Stakeholder Theory and Transaction Cost Economics
Who has a claim on the firm and whose claim you must answer today — and why the same logic decides which activities the firm should own at all.
Phase 25
Private Company Valuation & Restructuring
Discounts and premia for unlisted assets, then what happens when ROIC stays below WACC.
Phase 26
Excel for Consultants
Keyboard-first modelling, lookups, sensitivity tables and audit-proof formatting.