Stocks
Owning fractions of businesses.
A share is a legal claim on a going concern. This course treats stocks as fractional ownership of businesses, not as tickers that move — the mode of thought that separates investors from traders across decades.
You will read a 10-K, build a valuation from cash flows, and produce a ten-page memo on one publicly traded company.
- 01
Read a 10-K.
- 02
Compute intrinsic value under stated assumptions.
- 03
Distinguish a good business from a good stock.
- — 201 — Investing Foundations.
2 weeks · ~7 hours plus the Assignment.
- IIModule · ~2 hours.
Reading a business
The 10-K as an institutional document.
The 10-K is the annual audit of a business by itself, under the discipline of law. Reading it is the core skill.
What You Will Be Able To Do- — Navigate a 10-K to the sections that matter.
- — Connect the three statements.
- — Locate the honesty in the footnotes.
Why hereThe 10-K is where the numbers live. The rest is commentary.
- IIIModule · ~2 hours.
Valuation
The number a business is worth, and how you get there.
A DCF and a multiple are the two lenses. Neither alone is sufficient; together they discipline each other.
What You Will Be Able To Do- — Build a defensible DCF.
- — Cross-check with multiples.
- — Compute owner earnings.
Why herePrice without a view of value is speculation. This module supplies the view.
- IVModule · ~2 hours plus the Assignment.
Stock selection
The disciplines of choosing.
The final discipline is to say what you will and will not own, and why, in writing.
What You Will Be Able To Do- — Define your circle of competence.
- — State a required margin of safety.
- — Write a ten-page company memo.
Why hereThe written memo is the artifact of a mature analytical process.
The memo is the artifact. Everything else in the course exists to make it defensible.