Valuation
How professionals decide what a company is worth — valuation multiples, discounted cash flow, relative valuation, value traps, and the margin of safety that protects you.
Start the course
- Comfortable with financial statements
- Free and indexed
- Real company data
Reading a report tells you what happened. Valuation tells you what it’s worth.
Where most investors stop
- “This company is growing fast, so I’ll buy it” — at any price
- “The P/E is 15, that seems low” — with no sector context
- Buying because a stock fell 40% — assuming cheap means good value
- Relying on analyst price targets without understanding how they’re built
- No framework to decide if today’s price is fair, cheap, or expensive
Where this course takes you
- Build a DCF model and derive an intrinsic value yourself
- Compare multiples within a sector to spot real mispricing
- Distinguish a genuine bargain from a value trap
- Understand exactly how Wall Street price targets are constructed
- Apply a margin of safety — the discipline that protects capital
Six professional-grade skills
Build a DCF from scratch
Project cash flows, discount them, and derive intrinsic value — the foundational skill of equity analysis.
Choose the right multiple
Know when P/E, EV/EBITDA, P/S, or PEG applies — and why the wrong one leads to expensive mistakes.
Run comparable analysis
Value any company against its peer group using live sector data, the way analysts do every day.
Spot a value trap
Distinguish a genuinely cheap stock from one that is cheap because the business is dying.
Apply a margin of safety
Build the discipline that protects capital: buying below intrinsic value, not at it.
Write a valuation thesis
Articulate a clear, testable investment case with explicit assumptions — the mark of a serious investor.
Curriculum — 6 lessons
- 01Valuation MultiplesP/E, EV/EBITDA, price-to-sales — what each multiple tells you and where each one misleads.30 min
- 02Discounted Cash FlowValue a company from the cash it will generate, and see why small assumptions create huge swings.35 min
- 03Relative ValuationValue a company against its peers — when comparables are the right tool and when they are a trap.25 min
- 04Spotting a Value TrapWhy a cheap stock can stay cheap forever, and how to tell a bargain from a falling knife.25 min
- 05The Margin of SafetyThe single most important idea in value investing — buying with a buffer against being wrong.25 min
- 06Final Project — Value a Company YourselfBring multiples, DCF and margin of safety together to build your own valuation of a real company.35 min