Finance Investing

Value Investing: Finding Businesses Worth Owning

A practical framework for analyzing companies, estimating intrinsic value, and building a disciplined long-term portfolio

Value Investing: Finding Businesses Worth Owning logo
Quick Course Facts
18
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
18
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
6.0
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Value Investing: Finding Businesses Worth Owning Course

This Value Investing course teaches you how to evaluate businesses with a clear, owner-focused mindset and make smarter decisions in Finance. You’ll learn how to separate price from true worth, estimate intrinsic value, and build a disciplined long-term portfolio with confidence.

Analyze Businesses and Invest With Confidence

  • Learn a practical framework for analyzing companies, estimating intrinsic value, and building a disciplined long-term portfolio
  • Understand Value Investing from its roots with Graham and Buffett to modern applications
  • Read financial statements with greater clarity to assess earnings quality, balance sheet strength, and cash generation
  • Apply risk controls, margin of safety, and behavioral discipline to improve decision-making

A practical framework for analyzing companies, estimating intrinsic value, and building a disciplined long-term portfolio.

In this course, you will study the core principles of Value Investing and learn how to think like a business owner rather than a short-term trader. The lessons walk you through the foundations of Finance, from price versus intrinsic value to the history of value investing and the ideas that shaped some of the greatest long-term investors.

You will also build the analytical skills needed to assess a company’s real economic strength. That includes reading income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, identifying durable competitive advantages, evaluating management quality, and normalizing earnings so you can see through one-time items and business cycles. These skills help you distinguish strong businesses from superficial bargains.

The course goes further by showing you how to estimate intrinsic value using valuation multiples and discounted cash flow fundamentals, then protect your downside with margin of safety, position sizing, and risk management. You will also learn how catalysts, time horizon, diversification, concentration, and cash affect portfolio construction and performance.

By the end, you will be able to turn analysis into a clear investment memo and make decisions with more discipline and less emotion. You will leave with a repeatable approach to Finance that supports better stock selection, stronger conviction, and a more durable long-term investing process.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations and Mindset

1 lesson

Value investing is the discipline of buying a business for less than its estimated worth, with a margin of safety. In this lesson, Professor Samuel Reed defines what value investing is, how it differs…

Core Investing Principle

1 lesson

Lesson 2: Price vs. Intrinsic Value

18 min
This lesson explains the difference between price and intrinsic value , which is the foundation of value investing. You will learn why market prices move constantly, why those moves do not always refl…

Graham, Buffett, and Beyond

1 lesson

Lesson 3: The History of Value Investing

20 min
This lesson traces how value investing developed from a strict focus on statistical bargains into a broader approach centered on durable businesses, sensible prices, and long-term ownership. You will …

Business Analysis Basics

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Reading a Business Like an Owner

22 min
This lesson shows how to read a business the way an owner would: by understanding how it makes money , what drives demand , and which parts of the business actually matter for long-term value. Rather …

Earnings and Profitability

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Income Statement Essentials

18 min
This lesson explains how to read the income statement with a value investor's mindset: what revenue, expenses, operating profit, and net income really tell you about a business's earnings power. You w…

Assets, Liabilities, and Capital Structure

1 lesson

Lesson 6: Balance Sheet Essentials

18 min
This lesson explains how to read the balance sheet through a value investor’s lens: what a company owns, what it owes, and how much financial flexibility it has. You’ll learn how assets, liabilities, …

Cash Generation and Quality of Earnings

1 lesson

Lesson 7: Cash Flow Statement Essentials

20 min
This lesson shows how to read the cash flow statement as a value investor. You will learn how operating cash flow, investing cash flow, and financing cash flow differ from earnings, and why cash gener…

Moats and Industry Structure

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Finding Durable Competitive Advantages

22 min
This lesson teaches how to identify durable competitive advantages —the business traits that help a company keep customers, prices, margins, and returns on capital stable over time. Professor Samuel R…

Leadership and Stewardship

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Evaluating Management and Capital Allocation

20 min
Great investing is not only about buying cheap businesses; it is about buying good businesses run by trustworthy managers and funded with sensible capital decisions. In this lesson, you will learn how…

Adjusting for Cycles and One-Time Items

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Normalizing Earnings

20 min
This lesson shows how to turn reported earnings into a more realistic estimate of a business’s normal earning power . In practice, companies often report results that are temporarily too high or too l…

Comparables and Quick Screens

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Valuation Multiples

18 min
This lesson explains how to use valuation multiples as a fast, practical way to compare businesses and build a first-pass view of what a company may be worth. You will learn when common multiples like…

Estimating Intrinsic Value

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Discounted Cash Flow Fundamentals

24 min
This lesson introduces the discounted cash flow, or DCF , as a way to estimate what a business is worth based on the cash it can produce in the future. The key idea is simple: a company is worth the p…

Building an Investment Buffer

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Margin of Safety

18 min
Margin of safety is the buffer between what you pay for a business and what you believe it is truly worth. In value investing, that buffer is what helps protect you from mistakes in your estimates, ba…

When Value Becomes Visible

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Catalysts and Time Horizon

17 min
This lesson explains why a good investment idea can still take time to work. You will learn how to identify catalysts —the events or changes that can reveal a company’s underlying value—and how to set…

Position Sizing and Downside Control

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Risk Management for Value Investors

20 min
This lesson explains how value investors protect capital while waiting for a market price to converge with estimated intrinsic value. The focus is not on predicting every market swing, but on position…

Staying Rational Under Pressure

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Behavioral Biases

18 min
This lesson explains how behavioral biases can distort even a sound value investing process. You will learn to recognize the most common traps, including overconfidence, loss aversion, confirmation bi…

Diversification, Concentration, and Cash

1 lesson

Lesson 17: Constructing a Value Portfolio

21 min
This lesson explains how to turn individual stock ideas into a coherent value portfolio . You will learn the trade-off between diversification and concentration, how to size positions based on convict…

From Analysis to Decision

1 lesson

Lesson 18: Case Study and Investment Memo

25 min
This lesson brings the value investing process to a close by turning analysis into a clear investment decision. Using a case study, students learn how to compare business quality, estimate intrinsic v…
About Your Instructor
Professor Samuel Reed

Professor Samuel Reed

Professor Samuel Reed guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.