Understanding Financial Ratios Without the Headache
Most people look at financial statements and see numbers. We'll help you see patterns, spot risks early, and make decisions that actually protect your money. Our program starts September 2025 and runs for eight weeks—just enough time to change how you think about finances.
Check Prerequisites
Real Financial Literacy Takes Practice
You won't learn financial ratios by memorizing formulas. That's the trap most courses fall into. Instead, we start with actual company reports—some thriving, some barely hanging on—and walk through what the numbers reveal.
By week three, you'll analyze a small business's liquidity position. Week five brings case studies from 2023's retail sector struggles. And by the end? You'll spot warning signs in balance sheets that most investors miss entirely.
This isn't about passing tests. It's about building intuition that serves you when real money is on the line.
What You'll Actually Learn
Eight weeks of practical work spread across three core areas. Each builds on the last, but we focus on application rather than theory.
Liquidity Analysis
Can a business pay its bills next month? Sounds simple, but the current ratio only tells part of the story. We'll dig into quick ratios, cash conversion cycles, and seasonal patterns that change everything.
Profitability Metrics
Gross margin versus operating margin—when does the difference matter? You'll learn which profitability ratios reveal pricing power, which expose cost problems, and when high profits might actually signal trouble ahead.
Leverage Assessment
Debt isn't inherently bad, but the wrong debt at the wrong time destroys companies. We cover debt-to-equity ratios, interest coverage, and how to read the fine print in credit agreements that changes the whole picture.
Efficiency Ratios
How fast does inventory move? Are customers paying on time? Asset turnover and days sales outstanding tell you if management runs a tight operation or lets cash leak away unnecessarily.
Market Valuation
P/E ratios get all the attention, but price-to-book and enterprise value multiples often matter more. We'll compare companies within sectors and discuss why context always beats formulas.
Trend Recognition
One quarter means nothing. Three years of data tells a story. You'll practice spotting deteriorating trends early and distinguishing temporary issues from structural problems that won't fix themselves.
How We Actually Teach This
Forget video lectures where someone talks at you for an hour. Our approach centers on worked examples, peer discussion, and mistakes that teach more than any textbook.
Rhea and Portia developed this method after years of watching students memorize ratios but freeze when facing real financial statements. So we flipped everything.
Case-First Learning
Every session starts with a real company's financials. We strip out the name, give you thirty minutes to analyze, then discuss what you found. The formula comes after you've already tried to figure it out yourself.
Comparative Analysis
Two companies in the same industry, wildly different financial health. You'll learn to spot red flags by comparing ratios side-by-side and questioning why the differences exist.
Error Workshops
Week four is entirely about common mistakes—misreading cash flow statements, ignoring one-time charges, trusting adjusted EBITDA without scrutiny. We show you where analysis goes wrong so you avoid those traps.
Industry Context
A 15% profit margin is excellent for grocery stores and terrible for software companies. We spend significant time on how sector differences change what "good" looks like.
Historical Perspective
The 2008 crisis, dot-com bubble, pandemic disruptions—we examine financial ratios from companies before major events. Pattern recognition improves when you've seen how warning signs appeared in the past.
Quick Insights That Matter
Some lessons take weeks to sink in. Others click immediately and change how you read every financial statement afterward.
Rising Revenue, Falling Margins
Growth looks good until you notice profits shrinking. This pattern screams pricing pressure or cost problems management isn't addressing. Catch it early or watch your investment deteriorate.
Working Capital Changes
When inventory jumps faster than sales, trouble's brewing. Either demand dropped unexpectedly or purchasing got sloppy. Either way, cash gets trapped in products sitting in warehouses.
Debt Maturity Walls
Companies refinance debt constantly—until credit markets freeze. Check maturity schedules. If huge amounts come due in the next eighteen months and margins are thin, that's your exit signal.
Seasonal Business Patterns
Retail companies always carry more inventory in October. Construction firms have weaker Q1 numbers. Know the seasonal patterns or you'll mistake normal fluctuations for genuine problems.
Quality of Earnings
Net income means nothing if it comes from accounting tricks rather than operations. Cash flow from operations should track net income closely. Big divergences require immediate investigation.
Related Party Transactions
When companies do business with entities their executives own, scrutinize everything. These deals often hide problems or shift profits away from public shareholders. The footnotes tell the real story.