theory library
Navigate the theory
Every phase across the three tracks, searchable by concept. Each finance phase now carries the intuition, the pitfalls interviewers catch, and a fully worked numeric example next to the drills and cases that use it.
Open the finance statistics glossary →Read all the theory on one page →Foundations
Open the track →Start here: the basics, assuming you know nothing yet.
Phase 1
What a business is, financially
Revenue, cost, profit and cash — and who has a claim on what is left.
13 sections · 3 drills · 1 cases
Phase 2
The three statements and how they link
A film, a photograph and a bank statement — and the two lines that join them.
11 sections · 2 drills · 1 cases
Phase 3
Reading a balance sheet
Assets = liabilities + equity, and what 'current' actually means.
12 sections · 2 drills · 1 cases
Phase 4
Reading an income statement
From revenue down to net income, and the three margins on the way.
11 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 5
Reading a cash flow statement
Operating, investing, financing — and why profitable companies go bust.
11 sections · 3 drills · 2 cases
Phase 6
Basic ratios you can do in your head
Margin, growth, return, liquidity and leverage — with the rounding tricks for each.
12 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 7
Money has a time cost
Interest, compounding, discounting and the Rule of 72 — the intuition first.
12 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 8
Where the money comes from
Debt, equity, and what 'cost of capital' means before any formula.
11 sections · 3 drills · 2 cases
Finance
Open the track →Accounting through valuation and risk — the analyst core.
Phase 1
Accounting & Financial Statements
Read the three statements, trace a transaction, decompose returns.
16 sections · 5 drills · 2 cases
Phase 2
Time Value of Money
Discounting, NPV, IRR and payback — the decision rules of corporate finance.
14 sections · 6 drills · 3 cases
Phase 3
Corporate Finance
What to invest in, how to fund it, how much to pay out.
14 sections · 5 drills · 2 cases
Phase 4
Financial Markets & Instruments
Bonds, duration, yield curves, equities and market efficiency.
13 sections · 4 drills · 1 cases
Phase 5
Portfolio Theory
Diversification, the efficient frontier, CAPM and factor models.
14 sections · 5 drills · 1 cases
Phase 6
Derivatives & Pricing
Forwards, futures, options, swaps, no-arbitrage and the Greeks.
14 sections · 4 drills · 1 cases
Phase 7
Valuation
DCF, multiples and precedent transactions — and defending the assumptions.
14 sections · 6 drills · 3 cases
Phase 8
M&A Mechanics
Accretion/dilution, synergies, cash vs. stock, diligence and defences.
13 sections · 5 drills · 3 cases
Phase 9
Comparable Companies & Precedent Transactions
Building a comps table, choosing multiples, and reading precedent deals.
12 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Phase 10
LBO Model Construction
Sources & uses, debt schedule, cash sweep, returns waterfall and attribution.
11 sections · 5 drills · 3 cases
Phase 11
Risk Management
VaR, expected shortfall, stress testing and the Basel framework.
14 sections · 5 drills · 1 cases
Phase 12
Financial Analysis & Ratio Diagnostics
Turn statements into a diagnosis: margins, capital turns, working capital and debt capacity.
17 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Phase 13
Bond Markets & Fixed Income Valuation
Price a bond, read a yield curve, and translate rate moves into price moves.
15 sections · 5 drills · 2 cases
Phase 14
Equity Markets & Stock Valuation
Dividend discount, earnings power, and what a multiple is actually saying.
15 sections · 5 drills · 3 cases
Phase 15
Capital Structure & Payout Policy
Modigliani–Miller, the tax shield, and why dividends and buybacks are signals.
15 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 16
Foreign Exchange & International Finance
Quotes, parity conditions, hedging, and cross-border cash flow valuation.
19 sections · 3 drills · 3 cases
Phase 17
Corporate Finance — The Berk & DeMarzo Lens
Investment, financing and payout decisions through the leading corporate-finance textbook and Graham's reality check.
26 sections · 8 drills · 5 cases
Phase 18
Earnings Quality & Forensic Accounting
Where management paints the picture, and how the cash flow statement gives it away.
10 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Phase 19
Payout Policy & Capital Returns
Dividends, buybacks, signalling and the excess-cash decision tree.
10 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Phase 20
Management Accounting & Cost Transformation
ABC, cost allocation, price/volume/mix variance, transfer pricing and break-even.
12 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
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.
12 sections · 2 drills · 3 cases
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.
12 sections · 1 drills · 3 cases
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.
12 sections · 2 drills · 2 cases
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.
13 sections · 2 drills · 3 cases
Phase 25
Private Company Valuation & Restructuring
Discounts and premia for unlisted assets, then what happens when ROIC stays below WACC.
12 sections · 5 drills · 3 cases
Phase 26
Excel for Consultants
Keyboard-first modelling, lookups, sensitivity tables and audit-proof formatting.
11 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Strategy Bridge
Open the track →Why a company wins, and how that turns into numbers.
External analysis
Industry & Competitive Analysis
Five Forces, PESTEL, strategic groups and the industry life cycle.
11 sections · 3 drills · 3 cases
Internal analysis
Internal Analysis & Capabilities
RBV, VRIO, the value chain and core competences.
10 sections · 3 drills · 2 cases
Corporate strategy
Corporate & Growth Strategy
Generic strategies, Ansoff, BCG, Blue Ocean and diversification.
10 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Execution
Strategy Execution
Balanced Scorecard, OKRs, organisational design and game theory.
10 sections · 3 drills · 2 cases
Integration
Where Finance Meets Strategy
Capital allocation, M&A discipline, balance-sheet strategy and EVA.
11 sections · 5 drills · 3 cases
Theory
Theoretical Lenses on Competitive Advantage
IO economics, RBV, dynamic capabilities, TCE, agency, real options and the institutional view.
8 sections · 3 drills · 3 cases
Corporate scope
Corporate Scope & the Multi-Business Firm
Parenting advantage, headquarters roles, synergy versus bureaucracy and the conglomerate discount.
9 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Boundaries
Vertical Integration & Firm Boundaries
Make, buy or ally: asset specificity, hold-up, double marginalisation and ecosystems.
9 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Diversification
Diversification & Corporate Value Creation
Related versus unrelated moves, economies of scope, the three tests and refocusing.
7 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
International
International & Global Strategy
CAGE distance, the integration–responsiveness grid, entry modes and location choice.
8 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Innovation
Innovation, Technology & Evolving Industries
Standards, network effects, disruption, appropriability and business-model innovation.
7 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Governance
Governance, Stakeholders & Strategy Under Uncertainty
Shareholder versus stakeholder logic, incentives, activists, ESG and scenario planning.
7 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Craft
Reasoning & Writing Like a Strategist
Applying frameworks rather than naming them, critical reflection and proposition-building.
7 sections · 4 drills · 3 cases
Statistics
Open the track →Probability through machine learning and visualisation.
Phase 1
Describing Data
Populations and samples, averages, spread, shape and what a number can honestly claim.
14 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 2
Probability Foundations
Random variables, Bayes, key distributions, CLT and LLN.
12 sections · 5 drills · 1 cases
Phase 3
Statistics of Returns & Risk
Return definitions, log returns, volatility scaling, fat tails and the risk numbers built on them.
13 sections · 5 drills · 1 cases
Phase 4
Correlation, Diversification & Beta
Covariance, correlation, portfolio variance and the regression that produces beta.
14 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 5
Statistical Inference
Hypothesis testing, p-values, errors, power and confidence intervals.
12 sections · 5 drills · 1 cases
Phase 6
Regression & Econometrics
OLS, R², diagnostics, endogeneity and logistic regression.
30 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 7
Time Series
Stationarity, ARIMA, GARCH and out-of-sample forecasting.
19 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 8
Applied Time Series for Business & Finance
ARIMA, ADL, forecasting, VAR, cointegration and GARCH — plus how to run the whole project in R.
16 sections · 6 drills · 3 cases
Phase 9
Machine Learning
Trees, ensembles, regularisation, clustering and cross-validation.
11 sections · 4 drills · 2 cases
Phase 10
Advanced Methods
Bayesian statistics, deep learning, NLP and high-dimensional data.
10 sections · 3 drills · 1 cases
Phase 11
Tools & Programming
Python, R, SQL and Excel — the stack employers screen on.
10 sections · 3 drills · 1 cases
Phase 12
Data Visualization
Charts as analysis: match the type, cut the junk, label directly.
11 sections · 3 drills · 2 cases