I teach corporate finance, valuation and investment philosophies at the Stern School of Business at New York University. I have online versions of all three courses here, as well as other finance-related videos. 1. The Corporate Finance Online playlist has an introductory video and 36 sessions that cover all of corporate finance (at least as I see it). 2. The Valuation playlist has 25 sessions that cover valuation approaches, issues and questions. 3. The Investment Philosophies playlist has sessions that cover different investment philosophies. 4. The Accounting and Statistics playlists reflec
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38:1259K views · 4d ago · 38:12
The market's sharp drop on November 5, driven by a decline in tech, renewed a question that has been heard all year of whether this is the final call on the AI trade, where investors buy all stocks AI-related and hope to ride the AI buzz to riches.
51:3955K views · 10d ago · 51:39
I valued Anthropic, after its prospectus filing and ahead of its IPO, at $1.475 trillion about a week ago, and was open about the fact that I was telling a big story, with inputs and value to match. I encouraged people to push back and come up with their own stories, inputs and values for the company and many did.
47:45216K views · 16d ago · 47:45
The long-awaited Anthropic prospectus is now public, and as promised, I value the company. I start with an examination of what we can learn from the prospectus about revenue growth, profitability, reinvestment and risk at Anthropic, noting that both optimists (glass half full) and pessimists (glass half empty) will find reasons to celebrate, but that it is still a snapshot of a young company that is evolving.
45:5056K views · 22d ago · 45:50
32:5287K views · 1mo ago · 32:52
The key reason that US equities have held their own this year, in the face of rising interest rates, is a surge in aggregated earnings, which some have attributed to the massive investments in AI cap ex. In this session, I start by updating my market views to October 1, by bringing in September's explosive rise in rates and updating my estimates for expected returns and equity risk premiums for US stocks.
36:48101K views · 2mo ago · 36:48
In the first eight months of 2026, as global tensions play out in markets, interest rates have taken center stage for three reasons - long-term US treasury rates have hit 20-year highs, concerns about an economic recession have resurfaced and a new Fed Chair (Kevin Warsh) in conjunction with a vocal secretary of the treasury (Scott Bessent) have added uncertainty to the mix.
48:5558K views · 2mo ago · 48:55
Every business is faced with the question of whether to become bigger or build a better business model (delivering more in profits) and in this session, I start by looking at the factors that make that choice different for different businesses. I look at the conditions that make scaling up easier at some business than others, and the ingredients that go into a better business model.
44:3641K views · 2mo ago · 44:36
It is undeniable that AI has taken over business and investing conversations since ChatGPT's debut on November 30, 2022. In addition to pushing up the market capitalizations of the companies that supply its infrastructure (chips, power, electrical equipment), it has also given rise to the largest investment build-up in history, with $2 trillion spent so far on AI architecture, with more to follow.
36:2043K views · 3mo ago · 36:20
If you have been reading the financial press or tracing social media, the story of Leo Aschenbrenner and the rise and fall of his hedge fund, Situational Awareness, has been widely covered, with different views on causes. I use the story of this fund, created to monetize Leo's vision of AI as an immensely successful disruption in the near term, to talk about investment conviction, words often used as positives, when talking about investing.
31:4115K views · 3mo ago · 31:41
In this session, I talk about two long-running stories in markets, the first relating to a SEC proposal to replace quarterly with semi-annual reporting for US firms and other to Kevin Warsh's (the new Fed chair) view that the Fed should speak less and provide less guidance. The common themes in both stories is that they remove "news" that the market has become to receiving and using to set prices, and the advocacy and opposition to both proposals share commonalities.
37:0015K views · 4mo ago · 37:00
Guest: Country Risk
In this session, I summarize the paper, starting with the drivers of country risk - politics, corruption, exposure to violence and the strength of the legal system - before moving on to measures of country risk - sovereign ratings and CDS spreads for default risk, country risk scores and country equity risk premiums.
📄 Mentioned papers: Paper on papers.ssrn.com
46:0335K views · 4mo ago · 46:03
As debate has raged about whether SpaceX is worth $ 2 trillion plus, and how much Anthropic and OpenAI will be priced at, there is a parallel question that has created just as much heat on whether these stocks should be included in the S&P 500.
45:1999K views · 5mo ago · 45:19
I value SpaceX a few weeks ago, using piecemeal information and entirely on narrative, and promised to return to the valuation when the prospectus was public. The prospectus has now been filed, and the offering price set, and I revisit SpaceX, armed with the additional information.
36:0921K views · 6mo ago · 36:09
I have been a user of Apple products since the first Mac came out in the early 1980s, and I have been an investor off and on in the company for much of its life. The announcement that Tim Cook was planning to step down as CEO after a stint of fifteen years atop the company caught my attention, and in this session, I look at his legacy.
31:5238K views · 6mo ago · 31:52
In a world where so many companies claim to be unique and futuristic, SpaceX is the real deal, a package of spaceships, satellites and AI. When he founded the company in 2002, Elon Musk announced that he was doing so to make the costs of going into space lower and to make space travel possible.
19:3067K views · 7mo ago · 19:30
Slides Blog Post Data Day-by-day ERP ERP by country (updated to March 31, 2026)
43:4515K views · 7mo ago · 43:45
An investment philosophy is a coherent set of beliefs about how markets work (and sometimes don't work) that underpins your investment strategies and choices, and it is a critical ingredient for successful investing in the long term. Many investors (including quite a few professional and institutional investors) lack core philosophies, and consequently end up chasing last year's winners or falling for investment scams.
📖 Mentioned book: Barnes and Noble
▶️ Mentioned videos: YouTube Playlist
15:359K views · 7mo ago · 15:35
Guest: Active Investors' Track Record
In this session, we make the argument for passive investing by looking at the performance of active investors. We begin by looking at individual investors and note that they collectively under perform the market and that the under performance gets worse as they get more active. There is some cause for hope, though, since the very best investors do substantially out perform the market, especially if they stick to the companies that they know and don’t diversify too much.
12:522K views · 7mo ago · 12:52
Guest: Earnings Reports
In this session, we begin our discussion of trading based upon public information by looking at earnings reports. Since markets react to the news in earnings reports, we begin by categorizing that news into good, neutral and bad, by comparing the actual earnings to the predicted earnings. Not only do we see a price change that is consistent with the nature and magnitude of the surprise (positive price changes on positive surprises) but we also see two other phenomena.
8:472K views · 7mo ago · 8:47
In addition to exhibiting correlation across time, stock prices seem to also follow patterns in calendar time. In this session, we look at two of the most commonly noted calendar time phenomena in stock prices. The first is the January effect, where stocks have done much better in January than in any other month of the year.
16:252K views · 7mo ago · 16:25
In this session, we look at the process by which private businesses enter the public market place and whether investors can exploit frictions in that process to generate higher returns. We begin by describing the sequence of an initial public offering, from the investment banking underwriting agreement to the final offering date. We then examine the behavior of IPOs on the offering date, where, at least on average, the stock price jumps about 10-15% from the offering price.
24:194K views · 7mo ago · 24:19
As investors, we are easy prey for the sales pitches from firms trying to sell us the next “magic bullet” for investing success. In this session, we look at three ways to test whether these strategies that claim to beat the market work. In the first, an event study, we look at a news announcement (that we think affects stock prices) and collect the stock prices of the companies affected by this announcement.
25:184K views · 7mo ago · 25:18
When you trade, you incur costs and these costs can be a drag on your investment returns. In this session, we look past the brokerage costs of trading to bring in the larger costs: the bid-ask spread, the price impact and the opportunity cost of waiting. These costs not only vary across companies and time, but they can vary across strategies.
15:483K views · 7mo ago · 15:48
Our beliefs about market efficiency and inefficiency determine how we invest. In this session, we look at what an efficient market is and note that market efficiency does not preclude market mistakes (price can be different from value) or investors beating the market (though they tend to be few and far between). We also look at the requirements for a market to be efficient: liquidity in markets and traders/investors who are trying to exploit the inefficiencies.
13:002K views · 7mo ago · 13:00
In this session, we close by looking at the process of finding the best investment philosophy for you, as an investor. To make this choice, you have to begin with a personal assessment (patience, your need to be part of a group, age) and follow up with a financial assessment (job security, funds to invest, tax status).
12:031K views · 7mo ago · 12:03
In this session, we look at why alternative investments have not delivered their promised benefits to the institutional investors who have bought into their allure, and examine what's coming next. Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions) Slides Post-class test Post-class solution
18:232K views · 7mo ago · 18:23
In this session, we look at bitcoin specifically, an investment that has captured public imagination, with its soaring price and look at whether it belongs in investment portfolios and if yes, in what form. Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions): Slides: Post-class test: Post-class solution
37:151K views · 7mo ago · 37:15
In this session, we focus exclusively on collectibles, an investment class that can only be priced, not valued, starting with gold, the longest standing collectible of all, before turning to crypto and other collectibles. Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions): Slides Post-class test: Post-class solution
34:432K views · 7mo ago · 34:43
In this session, we look at asset classes and invstments that fall outside the standard template. These alternative investments include private equity and venture capital, which we have allocated to other sessions, but also include non-traded real estate, gold, crypto and collectibles. While they may not work or are dangerous to hold as stand-alone investments, they can be added to a portfolio of primarily financial assets (stocks and bonds) to good effect.
14:392K views · 7mo ago · 14:39
In this session, we look at the choices available for investors who choose the passive investing route. The first option is to invest in index funds, which have grown in terms of both dollar value and variety over the last four decades. They offer the benefits of tracking indices (of whichever asset class you want) with very little cost.
16:291K views · 7mo ago · 16:29
In this session, we continue examining the payoff to active investing by evaluating how much continuity there is in performance. We find little overall evidence of consistency, with investors in the top quartile in any time period just as likely to drop to the bottom quartile, as they are to stay in the top quartile.
18:292K views · 7mo ago · 18:29
Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions) Slides Post-class test Post-class solution
15:211K views · 7mo ago · 15:21
In this session, we focus on strategies that are often labeled as “arbitrage” but are really speculative, risky strategies that may or may not generate excess returns. First, we look at paired arbitrage, a practice of finding two companies that have historically moved together, where the current price relationship is not consistent with historic norms.
15:331K views · 7mo ago · 15:33
In this session, we begin by looking at market timing approaches that are built on the presumption that there is a normal level for a financial market and that prices revert back to this normal level. In the context of stocks, this usually takes the form of a normal PE, computed using either current or normalized earnings, with the assumption that if stocks collectively are trading at a PE higher (lower) than the normal PE, they are over (under) priced.
12:001K views · 7mo ago · 12:00
In this session, we begin by arguing that all investors are market timers, insofar as they decide how much to invest and when to invest, with the difference being more of degree. The allure of market timing comes from the payoff that it delivers to those who are successful at it, since successful market timers will easily beat their counterparts in stock picking.
20:311K views · 7mo ago · 20:31
In this session, we begin by classifying non-financial indicators that have been used to time markets into three groups: spurious indicators that are correlated the market but have no economic relationship, feel good indicators that try to measure investor optimism and often work better as contemporaneous rather than leading indicators of stock prices and hype indicators that attempt to measure the fad factor in stock prices, with the assumption that hype goes before a fall.
17:281K views · 7mo ago · 17:28
In this session, we look at extending valuation approaches developed for valuing individual stocks to valuing the entire market. We begin by using an intrinsic valuation model to value the S&P 500 as the present value of expected cash flows on the index. While the approach is promising, it is dependent upon historical data and can provide poor signals, if there has been a systematic shift in risk preferences or growth potential.
26:431K views · 7mo ago · 26:43
Guest: Pure Arbitrage
In this session, we lay down the requirements for pure arbitrage: assets that have identical cash flows that trade at different prices at the same point in time in different markets, with a guarantee that that the price difference will close. We note that pure arbitrage is most likely to occur in the derivatives markets and establish the arbitrage relationships that should govern the pricing of futures and options.
17:331K views · 7mo ago · 17:33
Guest: Other Announcements
In this session, we turn our attention to public announcements other than earnings. We begin by looking at acquisition announcements, establishing that the winners in acquisitions are clearly target company stockholders and that many acquisitions don’t work in delivering value to acquiring company stockholders either at the time of the announcement or in the years after.
17:53954 views · 7mo ago · 17:53
Guest: Near Arbitrage
In this session, we look at near arbitrage, where you have two very similar (but not identical) assets trading at different prices at the same point in time or two identical assets that are mispriced with no guarantee that the price difference will close. In both cases, we argue that while you can create low-risk positions, it is impossible to create the riskless, guaranteed profit positions that characterize pure arbitrage.
12:411K views · 7mo ago · 12:41
In this session, we look at a strategy of following the insiders in a company, buying when they are buying and selling when they are, on the assumption that insiders know more about a company’s value than market participants. To evaluate whether this strategy works, we first look at whether insider trading is a good predictor of stock returns in subsequent time periods.
20:541K views · 7mo ago · 20:54
In this session, we look at equity research analysts and consider whether following their advice is a market-beating strategy. We begin by looking at earnings estimates from analysts and note that while they are better predictors of actual earnings than time series models (which use only past earnings), the improvement in accuracy is modest and primarily in short term forecasts.
10:091K views · 7mo ago · 10:09
In this session, we introduce information trading (as a philosophy) by first delineating how efficient markets should respond to new information, as opposed to slow learning or over reacting markets.
15:391K views · 7mo ago · 15:39
In this session, we wrap up our discussion of growth investing by looking at why some investors may choose to be growth investors, even though it has historically not delivered the types of return that value investing has. In particular, we note that investors who are good at timing macro or market-wide shifts in interest rates and earnings can also generate high returns from growth investing.
23:542K views · 7mo ago · 23:54
Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions) Slides Post-class test Post-class solution
18:011K views · 7mo ago · 18:01
In this session, we look at activist value investing, where you not only buy cheap companies, but also provide the catalysts for prices to adjust to value. In particular, we examine the strategy of investing in poorly managed companies and changing their asset mix, capital structure, dividend policy and corporate governance with the intent of increasing value (and price) over time.
17:261K views · 7mo ago · 17:26
In this session, we set the table for growth investing as a philosophy by defining growth investing as an approach based upon the presumption that markets misprice growth assets more than assets in place. With this definition in place, we categorize growth investing into four groups: investing in small market cap companies, investing in initial public offerings, screening for growth at a reasonable price (GARP) and activist growth investing.
19:212K views · 7mo ago · 19:21
Playlist for class (Intro + 42 sessions) Slides Post-class test Post-class solution
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