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Financial analysis, from zero

This short course takes you from "what is revenue?" to valuing a company yourself. No previous knowledge needed. Each lesson takes about 10 minutes. Beginners can start at the top; if you already know the basics, jump to Part 2.

How to read our lessons: follow the arrows

Real financial statements are just lists of numbers. We show them exactly as companies publish them, and next to every important number an orange arrow points to a short explanation on the same line. Try it:

Example in dollars
Revenue500,000
All the money customers paid. The starting point of everything.
Costs(428,000)
Numbers in (brackets) are taken away. Accountants never use minus signs.
Net income72,000
What is left for the owners: the famous "bottom line".

The path

Part 1 · Money & markets

🧭

The branches of finance

Personal, corporate and public finance, banking, insurance…
🏛️

Primary & secondary markets

IPOs, stock exchanges and who does what, with real examples.
📈

What is a stock?

Ownership, dividends, indices and risk.
📜

What is a bond?

Coupons, yields, ratings, and why prices move.
🥇

Gold & silver

2,600 years of money, from Lydian coins to 2025.
🧺

Funds, risk & interest rates

ETFs, diversification and central banks.

Part 2 · Reading a company

🧾

Income statement

Did the company make a profit this year?
⚖️

Balance sheet

What does it own and owe, on one day?
💧

Cash flow statement

Where did the real cash come from and go?
📐

Ratios

Profitability, debt and solvency in a few divisions.

Part 3 · Valuing a company

💎

Multiples

P/E, EV/EBITDA, P/B, FCF yield.
🧮

DCF step by step

Cost of equity, cost of debt, WACC, terminal value — every formula explained.

Part 4 · Real companies

🏭

Every industry is different

Banks, software, retail, oil, pharma, airlines, utilities: their own problems and numbers.
🔄

The economic cycle

Caterpillar vs Procter & Gamble vs Microsoft in good times and bad.
👴 The one-sentence version The income statement is the company's year as a film, the balance sheet is a photo taken on the last day, and the cash flow statement follows the real money — together they tell you if a business is healthy.

Meet our example company: Rat Bakery

To learn without distractions, the statement, ratio and valuation lessons use one small, made-up business: Rat Bakery Ltd., a bakery that sells bread to walk-in customers and to local cafés. It has 10,000 shares owned by its founders. Because the numbers are small and round, you can check every calculation with a pocket calculator. In the last lessons we move to real, famous companies from different industries.

💡 Why a bakery? Every big company works exactly the same way, just with more zeros. Apple's income statement has the same lines as Rat Bakery's.