What You'll Learn
Welcome to Financial Statement Analysis: Company Forecasts and Valuations, a practical online course that culminates in using financial statement information for equity valuation. Learners create and forecast a complete set of pro forma financial statements to determine the intrinsic value of a firm using both cash flow and income valuation models.
Taught by an industry professional from Rice Business, this self-paced course focuses on leveraging information contained within financial statements to guide the valuation process. Through engaging lectures, practical case studies and hands-on exercises, participants learn to assess accounting inputs, develop financial forecasts and apply multiple valuation approaches to confidently estimate firm value and intrinsic stock prices.
Related Course: This is the second course in the two-course Financial Statement Analysis series. Rice Business recommends completing Financial Statement Analysis: Fundamental Ratio Analysis before enrolling in this course to build a strong foundation in financial statement analysis.
Who Should Enroll
- Financial professionals and analysts working in finance, accounting or corporate roles—including investment banking, corporate development, equity research and portfolio management— who want to strengthen financial statement analysis, forecasting and company valuation skills.
- Aspiring investors and analysts who want to extract, interpret and apply corporate financial information to determine a company's intrinsic value.
- Executive and management professionals, including business owners and decision-makers, who need to analyze financial performance to support strategic planning and business growth.
- Individuals with foundational accounting knowledge seeking practical, hands-on application to real-world financial statement analysis and equity valuation scenarios.
You Will Be Able To
- Identify accounting errors, estimation challenges and managerial incentives that may affect the reliability of financial statement inputs.
- Interpret revenue recognition practices and other accounting policies to understand how they influence reported financial performance.
- Develop structured forecasts for revenue, operating performance and key balance sheet accounts.
- Construct integrated financial statement forecasts that link the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement into one comprehensive financial model.
- Calculate cost of capital and other key inputs required for financial valuation models.
- Evaluate company value using multiple approaches, including discounted cash flow, dividend discount, residual operating income and market-based multiples.
Meet Your Rice Professor
Brian Akins is an Associate Professor of Accounting at Rice Business. He teaches financial accounting in the full-time MBA, Professional MBA and Ph.D. programs. His research focuses on financial reporting quality and the impact of accounting information in debt and equity market settings. Dr. Akins earned his Ph.D. in Accounting from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also holds an MBA from Rice University.
Questions? Contact Brian Akins.
Have questions? Please e-mail akins@rice.edu.