Financial analysts are forecasters. They are also budgeters, advisors, bookkeepers, and market observers. It is the responsibility of financial analysts to keep the company’s financial present on track and predicting the future to help with business decisions. Such responsibilities make the profile one of the highest paid jobs in the market with growth trends outshining many other positions out there. To become an expert analyst, you need the best financial analyst training. And typically, the best training program will focus on the following topics both from a theoretical and application-oriented angle.
- Financial accounting
The world of finances is spineless without accounting. Becoming privy with the language of finance, being able to write and understand the universally accepted accounting terminologies – these are necessary skills to start with any type of financial analysis of forecasting. The best training module will give you a managerial level overview of financial accounting. If not to the very depths, you will at least require intermediate expertise.
- Corporate financing
Assets, capital, shares, accruals, accounts payable, and receivable – you will come across such terms frequently when you sit with the financial statements of any company. And you need to know what exactly should you do with them. Whether you join an investment bank or a B2C company, you will be living and breathing corporate financing every day as a financial analyst. An essential subject to master before taking things to the next level.
- Financial modelling
How do financial analysts forecast the events of the market? Through financial modelling. Models take historical and currently available data into account to predict investible funds that will assure a capital return. You will learn about the popular modeling techniques, their involved nuances, and ways to predict results accurately by removing biases. Also, expect to develop a few technical skills like MS Excel.
- Business valuation
This is necessary for financial analyst training to fit you into the advisor role. Financial analysts are often called into merger and acquisition meetings to help decide whether a company is worth buying or not. They are also included in budgetary meetings to get an insight into the company’s current and expected financial position. Through business valuation skills, analysts can convert the intangible corporate parameters into solid figures and numbers and thus provide data-backed insights into the company’s core.
- Financial ratio analysis
Financial analysts are responsible for tracking important ratios like price to earnings, return on equity, and earning per share. Ratio analysis also helps to gain insights about liquidity, profitability, operational efficiency, and more. Your training will remain incomplete without an adequate discussion on financial ratio analysis and the skill to decode these numbers to compare multiple companies’ valuation in one spreadsheet. This advanced topic binds the other topics together with one axis.
So, look out for the above subjects while picking your online financial analyst training course. Search for more but do not settle for less. The best program will teach you from the very basic, maneuver expertly to the advanced levels and make you job-ready right after the certification course without the requirement of any other added modules.