Investment Academy

The Investment Academy

The Investment Academy is a selective, curriculum-based, semester-long program that teaches students how to become investors.

Members participate in a variety of lectures to prepare them for a career in investing, learning skills like financial accounting, valuation, excel, presentation generation, investment research, and more. Weekly lectures are lead by the GIS President or Head of Investment Research and are designed to guide you through the arduous technical skillset we offer. By the end of the Academy Program, members will be able to build their own DCFs and thoroughly understand company financial and qualitative data. However, most importantly, we teach our members how to use these pieces of information to develop an individualized thesis, and how to support it.

Committed Academy candidates are fast-tracked to becoming members of the Investment Research team.

Our Curriculum

  • Students will learn the fundamentals of investing. They will be exposed to value, growth, merger arbitrage, activism, special situations, and more investing strategies. Students will create and develop a thesis, learn to analyze companies, and more.

  • Students will study the foundations of financial accounting and apply the material in practical ways. They will learn about the three financial statements and how they link together, important line items and financial ratios, and eventually learn to project financial statements.

  • Once members understand the basics of accounting, they will learn how to project financial statements for use in modeling and advanced valuation. They will learn how to justify growth rates and the way line items connect across all three statements.

  • Students will study in depth financial valuation. They will learn key topics, including:

    -Why do we value companies?

    -Why do we create financial models?

    -What is a DCF?

    -What is an LBO?

    -How can we make our models unique?

  • Members will learn how to analyze analyst predictions to develop their own investment theses. They will utilize research and financial analysis to justify their assumptions in preparation for Investment Research. Topics covered include:

    -How do we create a Stock Pitch?

    -What is a thesis?

    -What are catalysts?

    -How can we derive a variant view?

    -How can we effectively communicate our ideas?

  • Students will also learn how to take advantage of online resources and programs, including:

    -Excel

    -Powerpoint

    -CapitalIQ

    -FactSet

    And more.