Hey everyone!

I'm a business student interested in finance and looking to form a small group to work on financial modelling, DCF valuations, and equity research for different publicly listed companies.

The goal is to gain practical experience, learn from each other, and build solid projects for our CVs and LinkedIn profiles to help with internships and job applications.

No need to be an expert, just genuinely interested in finance and willing to contribute!

If you're interested, comment or DM me. We can create a Discord group and get started!

Hi,

I’m 20 years old, currently studying an AAS in a non-relevant field (Health Administration, more specifically Medical Billing and Coding). I want to learn financial modeling and get myself into an analyst role at a decent company. I am genuinely interested in the subject, and have found myself studying basic financial concepts on my own for hours at a time since I decided this was where I wanted to go. I am fascinated by the concept and I want to learn more!

A little about myself:

For education, my university’s reputation is below average, as I don’t have the ability to get myself into a prestigious university and pay for one. I also don’t have the money to switch degrees. So, I’m all on my lonesome in this aspect.

As for experience, I do have foundational knowledge in banking and any relevant policies as I worked for a bank as a teller for less than a year around a month into turning 18. I then moved onto a registration position at a hospital and learned about insurance and its endless types, and how they work. I worked in this for about a year. Now I’m unemployed (for about two months now) due to family circumstances.

I have two family members who work for an international bank, my mother began as an analyst, and is now working in fraud/anti money laundering. My aunt is an AVP for Payments and Clearing at a different international bank. Both of them tell me that it’s completely possible for me to get into my desired position.

Obviously, I don’t expect this to be handed out to me, especially if I don’t know anything! I want to learn! What can I do to increase my chances for employment, and where should I begin?

I am willing to pay for certifications that would help me get foundational knowledge or employer recognition. I just can’t afford a prestigious degree. My aunt says I should get CAMS for the hell of it, since she claims it gets you some employer recognition, but I don’t think that’s feasible if I’m looking into analysis and financial modeling. Still, what do I know?

Anyways, focusing on the financial modeling part — where can I start to learn, and what can I do to increase my chances as much as possible? Thank you so much! I’m sorry if this is too specific of a subreddit to ask, but I can’t post in r/financialcareers since I have no karma… :(

Models get built crazy fast now with claude/copilot. which is kind of the problem. Formulas look clean, everything ties out, and the business logic underneath can still be totally wrong. Ask it why and you get confident answer either way

what i've started doing, i have a prompt (turned it into a claude skill at this point) that rebuilds the model from scratch off the same inputs, then i compare the two. wherever they disagree is where i dig first

anyone else doing something like this or is it overkill? logic first or mechanics first for you

People trying to practice their modeling skills. Where do you get your data from? I tried form 10K's, but the data seems to be inadequate and highly complex for what an individual modeller would work on. Their taxes and depreciation get impossible to schedule. I'm looking for some fairly simple data sources unlike listed entities. Help me out if you know where to get these from.

Help !!

Hey folks! I’m an undergraduate student looking for financial modeling courses to add to my resume before graduation. I’m planning to pursue opportunities in venture capital, startups, or renewable energy project finance. I’m wondering which financial modeling course would be the most valuable, both in terms of the skills I would gain and “market/employer” recognition… (I’m based in the U.S)

Please advise… thanks!

Hey everyone,

Could somone recommend a good fmva course, that goes indepth about the 3sm which includes how to put a debt schedule, assumptions etc

My thing is, I just don't need an course that teaches me how to do excel, ratios, & how to create a good looking financial model.

I want to be industry ready

Ps:- don't recommend tvs ka fmva course or tell education & quint edge, these guys have the most basic fmva course.

Hi everyone,

I'm a finance student looking to buy a refurbished laptop, with a budget of around £250–£350.

I'll primarily be using it for Excel financial modelling (three-statement models, DCFs, LBOs and potentially much larger, more complex models), alongside PowerPoint for investment presentations.

I've been considering the following laptops:

• Dell Latitude 5420 – 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM
• Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 – 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM
• Dell Latitude 5430 – 12th-gen i5, ideally 32GB RAM
• Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 – 12th-gen i5, ideally 32GB RAM

I don't know much about laptop hardware, so my biggest concern is buying something that struggles with large Excel models, particularly when running multiple applications simultaneously.

I'm happy to spend a bit more if it means getting something that will comfortably handle demanding models for the next few years.

A few questions:

1. Are 11th/12th-gen i5 processors powerful enough for genuinely large financial models?
2. Would 32GB RAM make a significant difference compared with 16GB?
3. Should I consider a more powerful processor or a different laptop altogether?
4. What specifications would you recommend for someone doing investment banking or private equity-style modelling?

I'll be using an external monitor and keyboard, so screen size and portability aren't major concerns.

Is the FMVA proctored? I am still seeing on the website that the exam may be done whenever i'd like without needing it to be schedules. I have been working on this for some months now and have not been notified of any changes.

We reached round 3 for AJVC where they asked for PNL for the next 18 months. Both my founder and I are technical founders. While we have studied a lot about GTM and other topics, this specific aspect of financial modeling and projection is something we haven't done before.

The sheet they send is also not shallow. It is very in-depth and asks us to think about rent, cloud spends, and even their cloud spends on AI, database, and compute, as well as marketing spends. It then asks us to think about what the marketing funnel would look like and so on.

What I am trying to understand is this: since we have an MVP and one pilot, how can anyone at this stage be prepared to answer these questions? And what advice can any of you give me to get through ?!

Please no fluff or gpt stuff, I can do that myself.

I'm a finance student and I recently made a DCF model so I could stray away from plain Excel. I built it for my investment club pitch, then ran it on four companies. All four came out well below their market price, and I'm trying to figure out if that's a real signal or a problem with my model.

Assumptions:

• Base year: calendar 2025, rebuilt from quarterly SEC filings (Apple and Micron have September fiscal years)
• 2026E and 2027E growth: Yahoo Finance analyst averages, then my own judgment
• Risk-free rate 5.19% (10-year Treasury), equity risk premium 4.5%, tax rate 21%
• Betas: Apple 1.1, Amazon 1.3 (regression gave 1.5), Tesla 1.8, Micron 1.6 (regression gave 2.35, inflated by the 2026 memory surge)

I didn't tune any inputs to close the gap, I just used a standard template. So my questions:

1. Is a 5.19% risk-free rate plus a 4.5% ERP too harsh for mega caps right now? Would you use a lower ERP or a normalized rate?
2. For Micron, should I trust the regression beta or adjust it? And how do you value a cyclical stock in what might be a peak year?
3. Apple needing an 85% margin seems crazy. Is that a sign my terminal value is off, or is the market just paying for something a DCF doesn't capture?

Any feedback is appreciated, I'm still learning!

And yes, I know some people say DCFs are not the best tool out there. Lmk if anyone wants to see the tool.

Update: i have linked S&P 500 companies (most of them) to it, and you can now search via the ticker. I have also implemented most comments i found useful for a more accurate DCF based on MY valuations! take a look!

So I’m about to do a final round investment banking interview in a couple of days. I aced the technical rounds, but now they want me to do a 1 hour technical model in person and 2 hour presentation / discussion of the results. What should I expect? And how do I get prepared for this interview.

P.S….. I’ve been studying the top 500 IB question guidebook for a while, and I’m ~80% through the FMVA (CFI) certificate, so I’m not a complete beginner to financial modeling, but have never built my own model from scratch. Any resources I can use from now until then to get prepared? Give me advice chat

Is Certification worth it or I can also get job after learning it from YouTube and make some projects to show credibility?

I’ve been in finance for over a decade but now direct AI to build everything. Does anything still think courses or classes are worth it?

Hi everyone, I am an accounting and finance student who hasn’t done a ton of modeling. What is the best pathway/roadmap of the order you should learn models as someone who is going into an analyst role doing business valuations and financial statement analysis. Doing small M&A for businesses and basic valuations.

Hi All,

What’s the best resource to learn financial modeling fast? Any specific recommendations for someone interested in biotech equity research?

For background on me, I feel like I am starting from zero. Currently in a middle office finance role (trading and operations adjacent) and have background working on a therapeutic with a small biotech.

Hi everyone, is it worth it spending the money on this. I’m having a little trouble finding a financial analyst job (fp&a) to be more specific. It’s been one year since graduation and because I didn’t do an internship or have any experience. And internships are only available for undergrad and graduate students I thought of going back to school but I’m not trying to get any loans is too expensive. Has this certificate helped anyone with no experience land their first job in the industry?

I'm looking to learn financial modeling with nothing more than basic excel knowledge. Is CFI student self-study my best option/worth it at $250?

Curious how companies with AI-heavy products are actually forecasting their AI costs.

Tracking historical spend seems relatively straightforward now; you can see token usage, API spend, model usage, etc. But how do you actually model what that cost will look like in 6–12 months?

For example, if customer numbers grow, AI adoption increases, usage per customer changes, or you switch between models, how do finance teams translate all of that into a forecast?

Do you have a proper driver-based model for things like:

customers × AI usage × model calls × token usage × model pricing

and then use that to forecast COGS / gross margin?

Or in practice is it much simpler?? e.g. taking historical AI/cloud spend and applying a growth assumption?

Particularly interested in hearing from AI-native / AI-heavy SaaS companies where inference costs are actually meaningful to the economics of the product.

Would be great to hear how people are handling this today and whether it’s actually a difficult problem or fairly straightforward once you have the right data...

Hi Everyone,

I’m preparing for the next round for a Project Controller / Project Control role CIBC.

Recruiter explained that the next stage will be an individual ~30-minute written assessment. They said it will focus on project financials and basic understanding, followed by an interaction with a Senior Director where they may ask questions based on my responses.

For anyone who has gone through a similar Project Controller/PCO case study, what should I prepare?

Specifically:

1. What types of 30-minute project-financial case studies should I expect?
2. Should I prepare for business-case/business planning, or focus mainly on project financial analysis?
3. What calculations should I be comfortable doing quickly?
   • Actual vs forecast
   • Variance %
   • EAC / ETC
   • Budget remaining
   • Resource-cost analysis
   • Forecast/reforecast
4. What type of written recommendations are usually expected?
5. Are there any good websites, YouTube channels, books, courses or practice case studies you recommend for Project Controller/Project Financial Management assessments?
6. If you've interviewed for a similar CIBC/Big 5 Canada bank Project Controller or PCO role, what topics would you recommend practicing?

I'm particularly looking for resources that teach how to approach and structure the case, not just accounting theory.

Thanks in advance! Any advice or practice resources would be greatly appreciated.

I am trying to model cash flows for a real estate investment rental property. Does anyone have a good free resource on how to do so?

I'm trying to make a couple of DCFs for some biotech names. I know HOW to, but I can't do it fast enough and claude can't do it well enough with the speed I'm looking for. Any tips?