Applied Value
Investing Certificate Program

Week 1 is an introduction to Value Investing with an overview of the history and discussion of the principles applied by value investors. Supplementing Week 1 will be a guest speaker panel with Ricky Sandler of Eminence Capital. Ricky will discuss an “in the trenches” view of the investment philosophy and approach that he has honed over decades of successful experience on the buy-side.

• History of Value Investing
• Fundamental (value) investing explained
• Introduction of the relationship between Price (P) and Value (V)
• Value investing principles

Module 2 lays down the groundwork concepts of market efficiency, indexing, and alpha measurement. Learners will be introduced to frameworks for understanding and attributing stock price movements to specific underlying factors. The module concludes with situations where the market offers mispricing, expectations gaps in stock investing, and the many faces of mispricing, and introduce a framework for solid fundamental investing.

• An academic vs. practitioner's view of market efficiency
• The Wisdom of Crowds
• Why stocks move up & down
• The importance of investor expectations
• Variant perspective, analytical edge, and catalysts

Students will conduct a deep dive on a business to understand its moats as well as the primary drivers of a company’s value. As part of the research process, students will learn how to evaluate revenue growth and how it influences a stock’s value as it flows through the company’s financials. The content also will cover how to discern why an investment opportunity exists and articulate the catalyst path to stock price movement.

• Foundations of Corporate Finance
• The drivers of value: ROIC, Growth, Reinvestment
• Cost of capital and capital structure
• Measuring and Forecasting Performance
• Profitability Metrics and Multiples (EPS, P/E, EV/EBITDA)
• Introduction to Valuation: Concepts and Methods
• Relative valuation (comparable company analysis)
• Intrinsic valuation (discounted cash flow analysis)

Students will conduct a deep dive on a business to understand its moats as well as the primary drivers of a company’s value. As part of the research process, students will learn how to evaluate revenue growth and how it influences a stock’s value as it flows through the company’s financials. The content also will cover how to discern why an investment opportunity exists and articulate the catalyst path to stock price movement

• Capital Markets Foundations & The IPO Process
• The FEV (fundamentals, expectations, valuation) Framework
• Building a Forecasting Architecture
• Top-7 "must-haves" for a Portfolio Manager in a model
• Full overview of a deep dive process
• Model sections, including comps/DCF/deep dive analysis/earnings power
• How to effectively read and interpret company reports
• Fundamentals of a Management Quality Assessment
• Ingredients of "Everything There Is To Know" ("ETIK")

Module 5 builds on the learning objectives of the prior module, focusing on practical aspects of developing a contrarian thesis. The module consludes with a deep dive into a company’s competitive strategy, barriers to entry, and differentiation.

• Practical tools for developing a contrarian thesis: Sentiment analysis, evaluating insider buying, and understanding herd mentality
• Assessing the competitive advantages of a business
• Impact of barriers to entry on return on invested capital (ROIC)
• The Focus Five: top drivers of business value creation

Students will learn about disaggregating growth and assessing expectations. Risk and Uncertainty will also be covered as they tie into evaluating a company’s long-term growth prospects. There is supplemental content on Management, Boards, and Corporate Governance.

• Disaggregating revenue growth to understand key drivers
• Assessing Risk
• Capital allocation, shareholder activism, and corporate governance

Students will gain insight into the ins and outs of an applied value investing process through deep dives on topics such as information gathering, model analysis, and crafting a fully-formed thesis. Students will hear from Matt Ober on alternative data and Freddy Brick on short selling.

• Efficiency and the time management during research
• A system for effective information management: Checklists, Scenario Analysis Premortems, an Unkown Unknowns
• The "sniff test" and how to "fish where the fish are"
• The 90% rule for idea selection

• Buy-Side Career Trajectory: This elective module focuses on considerations specific to students pursuing professional investment roles on the "buy-side". Students will learn how to most effectively allocate time in both rolling out and maintaining coverage as well as a process for relentlessly tracking core metrics across their sector coverage
• Pitching a Stock: This module is focused on taking a stock thesis and communicating it to others. Students will learn how to present an idea to audiences including PMs or other investors. Students will hear from Francois Trahan on Macro frameworks for equity analysts.
• The active management EcosystemIn this capstone, students will learn about the various avenues in which value investing may be applied including careers and the different traits required at different firms as well as how to be a great overall analyst.