An Open Home for my Spring 2025 Courses

January 5, 2025

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I’m a trainer at coronary heart, and yearly, for greater than twenty years, I’ve invited individuals to hitch me within the courses that I educate on the Stern College of Enterprise at New York College. Since I educate these courses solely within the spring, and the primary classes for every of the courses will probably be in late January, I believe it is a good time to supply some particulars on the courses, together with content material and construction. If in case you have learn these missives in prior years, a lot of what I say will sound acquainted, however I’ve added new content material and up to date the hyperlinks you will have to partake within the courses.

I used to be within the second yr of my MBA program at UCLA, after I had my second on grace. I had taken a job as a educating assistant, nearly completely as a result of I wanted the cash to pay my tuition and residing bills, and in a topic (accounting) that didn’t excite me within the least. A couple of minutes after I walked in to show my top notch, I noticed that I had discovered what I wished to do for the remainder of my life, and I’ve been a trainer ever since. Since that was 1983, this will probably be my forty first yr educating, and I’ve by no means as soon as regretted my selection.

I do know that educating is probably not your cup of tea, however I do hope that you simply get pleasure from no matter you do, as a lot as I do educating, and I want to assume that a few of that pleasure comes by.

My Educating Course of

I do a session on how one can educate for enterprise faculty school, and I emphasize that there isn’t any one template for a great trainer. I’m an old school lecturer, a management freak in the case of what occurs in my classroom. In forty years of educating, I’ve by no means as soon as had a visitor lecturer in my classroom or turned my class over to a free-for-all dialogue.

Class narrative: This can be a quirk of mine, however I steer clear of educating courses which might be collections of matters. In my opinion, having a unifying narrative not solely makes a category extra enjoyable to show, but additionally extra memorable. As you take a look at my class checklist within the subsequent part, you’ll be aware that every of the courses is constructed round a narrative line, with the classes build up to what’s hopefully a climax.
Bulking up the reasoning muscle: When requested a query at school, even when I do know the reply, I attempt to not solely purpose my approach to a solution, however to even be open about doubts that I’ll have about that reply. Consistent with the outdated saying that it’s higher to show somebody to fish, than to offer them fish, I consider it’s my job to equip my college students with the capability to give you solutions to questions that they might face sooner or later. In my submit on the menace that AI poses to us, I argued that one benefit we’ve over AI is the capability to purpose, however that the benefit of wanting up solutions on-line, i.e., the Google search curse, is consuming away at that capability.
Make it actual: I do know that, and particularly so in enterprise faculties, college students really feel that what they’re studying is not going to work in the actual world. I wish to assume that my courses are firmly grounded in actuality, with my examples being actual corporations in actual time. I’m conscious of the dangers that whenever you work with corporations in actual time, your errors will even play out in actual time, however I’m okay with being incorrect.
Straight solutions: Once I was a pupil, I keep in mind being pissed off by lecturers, who so totally hedged themselves, with the one hand and the opposite hand enjoying out, that they left me unclear about what they have been saying. I want to assume that I don’t maintain again, and that I keep true to the motto that I might quite be transparently incorrect than opaquely proper. It has generally received me some blowback, after I expressed my views about worth investing being inflexible, ritualistic and righteous and absolutely the vacancy of advantage ideas like ESG and sustainability, however so be it.

I’m conscious of issues that I must work on. My ego generally nonetheless will get in the best way of admitting when I’m incorrect, I usually don’t let college students end their questions earlier than answering them, I’m generally extra abrupt (and fewer form) than I ought to be, particularly when I’m attempting to get by materials and my jokes might be off coloration and corny (as my youngsters level out to me). I do preserve engaged on my educating, although, and if you’re a trainer, it doesn’t matter what stage you educate at, I consider you as a kindred spirit.

My Class Content material

In my first two years of educating, from 1984 to 1986, I used to be a visiting professor on the College of California at Berkeley, and like many visiting school world wide, I used to be requested to plug in holes within the educating schedule. I taught six totally different courses starting from a company finance class to undergraduates to a central banking for government MBAs, and whereas I spent nearly all of my time struggling to remain forward of my college students, with the fabric, it set me on a pathway to being a generalist. As soon as I got here to NYU in 1986, I continued to show courses throughout the finance spectrum, from company finance to valuation to investing, and I’m glad that I did so. I’m a pure dabbler, and I get pleasure from taking a look at large monetary questions and concepts from a number of views.

There are two core courses that I’ve taught to the MBAs at Stern, nearly yearly since 1986. The primary is company finance, a category in regards to the first ideas that ought to govern how one can run a enterprise, and thus a required class (in my biased view) for everybody in enterprise.

In case you are a enterprise proprietor or operator, this class ought to provide the instruments to make use of to make enterprise selections that take advantage of monetary sense. For those who work in a enterprise, whether or not it’s in advertising and marketing, technique or HR, this class is designed to supply perspective on how what you do suits into worth creation at your small business. In case you are simply thinking about enterprise, simply as an observer, it’s possible you’ll discover this class helpful in analyzing why corporations do what they do, from acquisitions to buybacks, and when company actions violate widespread sense.

The second is valuation, a category about how one can worth or value nearly something, with a instrument set for many who must put numbers on property.

Once more, I educate this class to a broad viewers, from appraisers/analysts whose jobs revolve round valuation/pricing to portfolio managers who are sometimes customers of analyst valuations to enterprise homeowners, whose pursuits in valuation can vary from curiosity (how a lot is my enterprise value?) to the transactional (how a lot of my enterprise ought to I surrender for a capital infusion?)

Whereas my class schedule has been crammed with these two programs, I developed a 3rd course, funding philosophies, a category about how one can strategy investing, attempting to elucidate why buyers with very totally different market views and funding methods can co-exist in a market, and why there isn’t any one philosophy that dominates.

My endgame for this class is to supply as unbiased a perspective as I can for a variety of philosophies from buying and selling on value patterns to market timing, with stops alongside the best way from worth investing, development investing and knowledge buying and selling. It’s my hope that this class will can help you discover the funding philosophy that most closely fits you, given your monetary profile and psychological make-up.

In 2024, I added a fourth course to the combination, one centered round my view that companies age like human beings do, i.e., there’s a company life cycle, and that how companies function and the way buyers worth them, modifications as they transfer from youth to demise.

I’ve used the company life cycle perspective to construction my considering on nearly each class that I educate, and on this class, I isolate it to look at how companies age and the way they reply to to getting older, generally in damaging methods.

In my company finance and valuation courses, the uncooked materials comes from monetary statements, and I noticed early on that my college students, regardless of having had a category or two on accounting, nonetheless struggled with studying and utilizing monetary statements, and I created a brief accounting class, particularly designed with monetary evaluation and valuation in thoughts. The category is structured across the three monetary statements that embody monetary reporting – the revenue assertion, stability sheet and assertion of money flows – and the way the categorization (and miscategorization) of bills into working, financing and capital bills performs out in these statements.

As a lot of you who might have learn my work know, I believe that honest worth accounting is not only an oxymoron however one which has completed severe harm to the informativeness of economic statements, and I take advantage of this class to elucidate why.

Since a lot of finance is constructed across the time worth of cash (current worth) and an understanding of economic markets and securities, I even have a brief on-line foundational class in finance:

As you may see, this class covers the naked fundamentals of macroeconomics, since that’s all I’m succesful to educating, however in my expertise, it’s all that I’ve wanted in finance.

As our entry to monetary information and instruments has improved, I added a brief course on statistics, once more with the slender goal of offering the essential instruments of information evaluation.

A statistics purist would in all probability blanch at my therapy of regressions, correlations and descriptive statistics, however as a pragmatist, I’m keen to compromise and transfer alongside.

As you flick thru the content material of those courses, and contemplate whether or not you wish to take one, it’s value noting that they’re taught in several codecs. The company finance and valuation courses will probably be taught within the spring, beginning in late January and ending in mid-Could, with two eighty-minute classes every week that will probably be recorded and accessible shorts after they’re delivered within the classroom. There are on-line variations of each courses, and the funding philosophies class, that take the type of shorter recorded on-line courses (about twenty minutes), which you can both take totally free on my webpage or for a certificates from NYU, for a price.

The accounting, statistics and foundations courses are solely in on-line format, on my webpage, and they’re free. All in all, I do know that a few of you’re budget-constrained, and others of you’re time-constrained, and I hope that there’s an providing that assembly your constraints.

In case you are , the desk under lists the gateways to every of the courses listed above. Word that the hyperlinks for the spring 2025 courses will lead you to webcast pages, the place there aren’t any classes listed but, for the reason that courses begin in late January 2025. The hyperlinks to the NYU certificates courses will take you to the NYU web page that may can help you enroll if you’re , however for a value. The hyperlinks to the free on-line courses will take you to pages that checklist the course classes, with post-class checks and materials to go together with every session:

The final column represents WhatsApp teams that I’ve arrange for every class, the place you may elevate and reply questions from others taking the category.

My Guide (and Written) Content material

Let me start by emphasizing that you do not want any of my books to take my courses. In truth, I do not even require them, after I educate my MBA and undergraduate courses at NYU. The courses are self contained, with the fabric you want within the slides that I take advantage of for every class, and these slides will probably be accessible for gratis, both as a packet for all the class or as a hyperlink to the session (on YouTube). To the extent that I take advantage of different materials, spreadsheets or information in every session, the hyperlinks to these as nicely will probably be accessible as nicely.

For those who desire to have a guide, I do have just a few that cowl the courses that I educate, although a few of them are obscenely overpriced (for my part, and there may be little that I can do in regards to the publishing enterprise and its need for self immolation.) You will discover my books, and the webpages that help these books, at this hyperlink, and an outline of the books is under:

Company Finance	Valuation	Funding Philosophies	Company Life Cycle
Utilized Company Finance (Wiley, 4th Ed): That is the guide that’s most carefully tied to this class and represents my views of what ought to be in a company finance class most carefully.	Funding Valuation (Wiley, third Ed, 4th ed forthcoming): That is my solely valuation textbook, designed for classroom educating. At nearly 1000 pages, it’s overkill however additionally it is essentially the most complete of the books when it comes to protection.	Funding Philosophies (Wiley, 2nd Ed): That is one of the best guide for this class, and offers background and proof for every funding philosophy, with an inventory of the private traits that you have to make that philosophy give you the results you want.	Company Life Cycle (Penguin Random Home, 1st Ed): That is the newest of my books and it introduces the phases of the company life cycle and why enterprise, administration, valuation and funding challenges change with every part.
Company Finance (Wiley, 2nd Ed): This can be a extra typical company finance guide, nevertheless it has not seen a brand new version in nearly 20 years.	Little Guide of Valuation (Wiley, 2nd Ed): That is the shortest of the books, nevertheless it offers the necessities of valuation, and at an affordable value.	Funding Administration (Wiley, 1st Ed): This can be a very outdated guide, and one which I co-edited with the redoubtable Peter Bernstein, targeted on writings on totally different components of the funding course of. It’s dated nevertheless it nonetheless has relevance (for my part).
Strategic Danger Taking (Wharton, 1s Ed): This can be a guide particularly about measuring danger, coping with danger and the way danger taking/avoidance have an effect on worth.	Darkish Facet of Valuation (Prentice Corridor, third Ed): This can be a guide about valuing difficult-to-value corporations, from younger companies to cyclical/commodity corporations. It’s a good add-on to the valuation class.	Funding Fables (FT Press, 1st Ed): This guide can also be outdated and badly in want of a second version, which I’ll flip to subsequent yr, nevertheless it covers tales that we hear about how one can beat the market and get wealthy rapidly, the issues in these tales, and why it pays to be a skeptic.
	Damodaran on Valuation (Wiley, 2nd Ed): This was my very first guide, and it’s practitioner-oriented, with the second half of the guide devoted to free ends in vlauation (management, illiquidity and so on.)
	Narrative and Numbers (Columbia Press, 1st Ed): This was the guide I most loved writing, and it ties storytelling to numbers in valuation, offering a foundation for my argument that each good valuation is a bridge between tales and numbers.

Lastly, I found early on how irritating it’s to be depending on outsiders for information that you simply want for company monetary evaluation and valuation, and I made a decision to turn into self sustaining and create my very own information tables, the place I report business averages on nearly each statistic that we monitor and estimate in finance. These information tables ought to be accessible and downloadable (in excel), and if you end up stymied, when doing so, attempting one other browser usually helps. The information is up to date every year, at first of the yr, and the 2025 information replace will probably be out there round January 10, 2025.

A Class Information

I might be delighted, for those who resolve to take a number of of my courses, however I perceive that your lives are busy, with jobs, household and pals all competing to your time. Chances are you’ll begin with the intent of taking a course, however it’s possible you’ll not be capable to end for any variety of causes, and if that occurs, I fully perceive. As well as, the programs that you simply discover helpful will rely in your finish sport.

For those who personal a enterprise, work within the finance division of an organization, or are a marketing consultant, it’s possible you’ll discover the company finance course alone will suffice, offering most of what you want.
In case you are within the appraisal or valuation enterprise, both as an appraiser or as an fairness analysis analyst (purchase or promote facet), valuation is the category that will probably be most immediately tied to what you’ll do. I do consider that to worth companies, you have to perceive how one can run them, making company finance a great lead in.
For those who plan to be in lively funding, working at a mutual fund, wealth administration or hedge fund, or are an particular person investor looking for your manner in investing, I believe that beginning with a valuation class, and following up with funding philosophy will yield the most important payoff.
Lastly, the company life cycle class, which spans company finance, valuation and investing, with doses of administration and technique, will probably be a great add on to any of the opposite pathways, or as a standalone for somebody who has little persistence for finance courses however desires a framework for understanding companies.

As a lead-in to any of those paths, I’ll go away it to you to resolve whether or not you have to take the accounting, statistics, and foundations courses, to both refresh content material you haven’t seen in a very long time or as a result of you end up confused about fundamentals:

If you end up overwhelmed with all or any of those paths, you all the time have the choice of watching a session or two of any class of your selection. As you take a look at the alternatives, you need to contemplate three realities.

The primary is that, except you occur to be a NYU Stern pupil, you’ll be taking these courses on-line and asynchronously (not in actual time). As somebody who has been educating on-line for near twenty years now, I’ve realized that watching a category on a pc or show display screen is much extra draining than being in a bodily class, which is one purpose that I’ve created the net variations of the courses with a lot shorter session lengths.
The second is that the most important obstacle to ending courses on-line, explaining why completion charges are sometimes 5% or decrease, even for one of the best structured on-line courses, is sustaining the self-discipline to proceed with a category, whenever you fall behind. Whereas my common courses observe a time line, you do not have to stay with that calendar constraint, and may end the category over an extended interval, if you’d like, however you’ll have to work at it.
The third is that studying, particularly in my topic space, requires doing, and if all you do is watch the lecture movies, with out following by (by attempting out what you might have realized on actual corporations of your selecting), the fabric is not going to stick.

I will probably be educating near 800 college students throughout my three NYU courses, within the spring, and they’ll get the majority of my consideration, when it comes to grading and responding to emails and questions. With my restricted bandwidth and time, I’m afraid that I will be unable to reply most of your questions, if you’re taking the free courses on-line; with the certificates courses, there will probably be zoom workplace hours as soon as each two weeks for a stay Q&A. I’ve created WhatsApp boards (see class checklist above) for you, if you’re , to have the ability to work together with different college students who’re in the identical place that you’re in, and hopefully, there will probably be somebody within the discussion board who can deal with your doubts. Since I’ve by no means completed this earlier than, it’s an experiment, and I’ll shut them down, if the trolls take over.

In Closing…

I hope to see you (in individual or nearly) in one in every of my courses, and that you simply discover the content material helpful. In case you are taking one in every of my free courses, please acknowledge that I share my content material, not out of altruism, however as a result of like most lecturers, I like an enormous viewers. In case you are taking the NYU certificates courses, and you discover the value tag daunting, I’m afraid that I can not do far more than commiserate, for the reason that college has its personal imperatives. For those who do really feel that you simply wish to thank me, one of the best ways you are able to do that is to cross it on, maybe by educating somebody round you.

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