Following are Learning Tools that we use in the class to teach the application of the material to analysts.  Please realize that these tools were designed to help you get through the analysis process in as short a period of time as possible.  I strongly recommend you read these learning tools before you begin the process.  They will save you significant amounts of time and effort.  These tools are divided into six ares:

1.  Financial Reports.  These are the tools that help the analyst in preparing the financial part of the investment analysis.  This discusses how to download the data, set up the excel spreadsheet, prepare the formulas, develop the intrinsic value forecasts, and determine the attractiveness of the company from a financial point of view.

2.  Company Reports  These tools help you as you determine the strategic positioning of the company.  They help you to determine the positive and negative factors, how to determine the key drivers of profitability, where to find earnings estimates and standard deviations of those estimates, and how to prepare for presentations to company management.

3.  Industry Reports.  These tools help you as you determine which industry your company is in and as you determine the relative attractiveness of your industry.

4.  Presentations.  These tools are designed to help you in the various presentations you will give.

5.  System Automation (Visual Basic for Application).  It is not enough to be able to create one report.  Analysts must be able to develop templates so they can use the same work to download and analyze multiple companies.  These tools help in automative the process of balancing the cash flow statement, getting price and earnings data, and calculating the firm's adjusted beta.

6.  Self-grading Sheets.  These sheets help the analyst know what to look for in the preparation of the reports.

7.  Examples of Past Reports.  These are examples of completed reports for your reference.