Financial Statement Analysis

Overview

Revised syllabus starting spring 2026

Course code: ACCT-UB.0003

Learning Objectives

• Financial accounting review:
  • Understand the connections between financial statements
  • Derive cash flows and understand cash flow drivers
  • Understand loans and their amortization
  • Trace the flow of costs in a manufacturing firm
• Unlever the income statement and the balance sheet to derive unlevered free cash flows
• Understand funding needs: Invested capital, total capital, operating working capital, fixed capital
• Understand how leverage amplifies variability: Operating and financial leverage
• ROIC drivers: Margin and net operating asset turnover
• ROIC, ROE, and financial leverage and liquidity
• Six key value drivers: Size, growth, margins, net operating asset intensity, business risk, and financial risk
• Comprehensive analysis of three companies: Costco, Starbucks, and United Airlines
• Build simple financial models with working capital and fixed capital drivers

Prerequisites

• A very good background in financial accounting is required.
• You will need to use Excel 365. You can get this free from NYU. Please contact NYU IT or Stern IT. This is outside my purview.

Help and Office

• Teaching assistant: Check Brightspace.
• Me: dgode@stern.nyu.edu, 212-998-0021, Office: KMC 10-86.

Materials

I will not require a textbook. Check Brightspace for links to the following materials:

• Classes are NOT recorded.
• Spreadsheeet-based HW:
  • Once you access the HW, you will see PDFs linked to each HW and a video explaining how to solve it
  • Online feedback tool that provides detailed feedback and multiple tries so that you can finish the HW.
• Financial Statements and Related Spreadsheets: Costco, Starbucks, and United Airlines

Assignments

• You need not get a full score on the assignments; any score above 80% is considered a passing score.
• The assignments appear as tests on Almaris. I may update the deadlines as the course progresses. The deadlines shown at Almaris are the correct deadlines.
• Some assignments are short; others are long. Please manage your time.
• NO EXTENSIONS will be granted for any reason except medical or family emergencies. If you have religious or personal conflicts, please submit the assignments early. The related materials are covered well in advance of the assignments. Please do not email me to request extensions unless you have a medical or family emergency.
• You can collaborate with others while doing assignments.
• All assignments are mandatory. After the first day of class, you can view the online assignments at http://www.almaris.com/assess/ using your official Stern email (no aliases) and the most recent password emailed to you by Almaris. The Almaris password is different from the Stern password. To retrieve the password, use your full email with the domain name as it appears in Brightspace. The domain name could be @nyu.edu for some of you, while for others, it could be @stern.nyu.edu. I do not control this mess.
• Assignments are marked “late” if you do not meet or exceed the passing score described below before the deadline. There is no additional penalty for lateness other than a low score.
• Assignments have a “passing score” of either 100% or less than 100%.
  • I set the passing score at 100% if you should ace the assignment. In reality, there is no passing grade. Whatever you get on your last attempt is your final score. You are graded on accuracy but not the number of attempts. There is a difference between “passing” and getting full credit. If you get 80/100 on your final attempt, you “pass,” but you do not score 100.
  • I set the passing score of less than 100% on a few assignments if you might not get every question right. Any score above that score is rounded up to 100%. For example, if the passing score is 90%, and you get 93%, your score is rounded up to 100%. I do the rounding up in a separate spreadsheet. You will see only the raw score online.
• Almaris is not affiliated with Stern in any way. It is offering these tests to Stern at no charge.
• Almaris staff is not authorized to extend deadlines under any circumstances. Only my TAs can do that. Almaris staff will reply to your emails only if they pertain to technical issues with the Almaris system. Please contact Stern IT for technical issues with your network.

Exams and Grading

• If you require academic accommodation during this course, you must register with the Moses Center as soon as the course begins. I cannot acoomodate unapproved requests.
• The exams will not be rescheduled for any reason except medical or family emergencies.
• I will pick the BEST of the following:

  Alternative	Assignments	Midterm	Final
  1	20%	30%	50%
  2	20%	0%	80%

Schedule