Topic outline

  • Welcome to the Financial Statement Analysis - The Online Edition

    After successfully completing the course, you will have the knowledge and skills needed to analyze financial statements in various decision-making situations. In particular, you will be able to analyze financial statements in order to evaluate (i) various aspects of the profitability of the firm, (ii) cash flows vs. accrual earnings, (iii) credit risk of the firm, and (iii) the value of the firm. You will, moreover, be familiar with how valuation models are used when preparing IFRS financial statements.

    Most of all, you will not be fooled as easily by those kinds of folks: 

    Analyst Image 

    The course will be delivered fully online and asynchronously (i.e. apart from testing no live interaction/presence requirements). You will approach the different topics module by module through the sections on the left, but are first required to familiarize yourself with the Syllabus and Practical Matters section to assure that we are all on the same side concerning deliverables, deadlines and assessment. Course content consists of materials published in the MyCourses sections (i.e., modules) and partly accessed through reading the relevant parts in the coursebook (Petersen, T & Plenborg, C. Financial Statement Analysis: Valuation - Credit Analysis - Executive Compensation. Prentice Hall.).  

    But let's start by first putting a face to the people behind the course and introduce both the team (David Derichs and Natasha Sjöblom) and the course:



    Furthermore, this course is supported by a video series of expert views on the Science and Art of Valuation produced by the Department of Finance. If you are interested who is providing those opinions, have a look at the following video: 

    Finally, Nina Sormunen provides additional practical insights into how companies use accounting expertise to truthfully and informatively report business information. 

    Additionally, this course features mini-lectures by Aswath Damodaran, a true valuation guru at NYU Stern, that are provided as part of one of his corporate finance courses. 

    In case you face technical issues at any stage during this course please place those questions in the Technical Issues discussion forum. Questions by email will not be answered as the course is administered by more than one individual.  

    • resource icon
      Grades (updated 9.11.2020) File
      PDF document

      Grade Points
      5 => 91 points
      4 => 81 points
      3 => 71 points
      2 => 61 points
      1 => 50 points
      fail < 50 points

      Please note that you have to get at least 20 points from the exam to pass. Please also note the following scaling issues. First, your total exercise points are divided by two (to get the 15% weight). Second, your exam 1 points are multiplied by 2/3 (to get the 40% weight). Retake exam points are unscaled. 

      PEP = previous exam points

      G = group

      EP = exam part

      REP=retake exam part

      time=refers to previous course timing (S20=summer 2020, A=autumn, S19=spring 2019)

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