ANALYST Academy

Frameworks to
Thrive on the Buyside

Join the program and build a structured, repeatable investment process, compressing years of on-desk experience into months of self-paced learning.

Enroll in Analyst Academy 
35+ hours of self-paced core content
12+ supplemental guest
speaker sessions
Live office hours for 
additional support
12 hours of
AI-focused content
1200+ analysts
trained

program structure

Traditional finance education does not prepare analysts for the seat, and the demands of the job prevent PMs from devoting significant time to juniors. Without a structured playbook, even the most talented analysts are forced to learn by osmosis. It can take years to build frameworks that could have been built in months.

Analyst Academy accelerates analyst development by condensing years of learn-by-osmosis into a structured curriculum. The program focuses on 3 main areas of development:

Fundamental
FOundations

Lay the groundwork for an institutional-grade investment process

  • How the industry works

  • The mechanics of the market

  • What actually drives stock movement

  • Developing investment ideas

Execution &
Implementation

Beyond the theory:
apply your knowledge
to the seat

  • Building models

  • Analyzing a business or industry

  • Navigating earnings season

  • Tracking ideas and pitching

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Download the syllabus

AI
Augmentation

Implement agents that increase speed and depth without sacrificing rigor

  • What AI can and can't do

  • Cloning yourself with agents

  • Two types of alpha: offload and signal

  • Implement AI within compliance standards

Stand out in the seat
Master the analytical frameworks that top hedge fund investors actually use.

instructors

Analyst Academy is designed and delivered by a team of instructors with decades of experience on the buyside. You'll be learning from instructors that were PMs and analysts at multi-managers, single managers, and long-only firms.

Brett Caughran

FOUNDER AND HEAD INSTRUCTOR

Brett brings 13 years of buy-side experience at Maverick, D.E. Shaw, Citadel, Bell Rock (fund launch), Two Sigma and Schonfeld along with experience teaching FIN 494 “the hedge fund analyst process” at Arizona State University. He founded Fundamental Edge in 2022 to help redefine training on the buy-side.

Andrew Carr

ANALYST COACH AND INSTRUCTOR

Andrew brings ~7 years of buy-side experience at Balyasny, ExodusPoint, and Strycker View Capital, and years of experience coaching candidates to seats at single-manager, long-only and multi-manager firms. Having made a career change and changed firms several times, Andrew understands the challenge of recruiting and the benefit of guidance.

Paul Johnson

SPECIAL INSTRUCTOR

Paul brings over 35 years of experience as an investor and business school professor. He is the founder of Nicusa Investment Advisors and teaches value investing at Columbia Business School and the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. Paul has also co-authored several notable books, including Pitch the Perfect Investment and The Gorilla Game.

how it works

1: Enroll and Start Learning

As soon as you enroll in the course, you get immediate access to the entire library of prerecorded content: That's 40+ hours of core content and 20+ hours of supplemental guest speaker sessions from luminaries from different corners of the market. Each module can stand on its own so you can focus on the topics with the highest impact for you.

2: Engage and Go Deeper

As a part of the Analyst Academy, you get 6 months of access to our live office hours sessions and 4 live AI Labs. These optional sessions are where you can pick our instructor's brains with live questions and follow up. All students are also invited to participate in a mock pitch capstone project to test what you learned and apply it in a real-world case study.

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3: Stay Connected

Once you sign up, you get a full 12 months of access to all the content (including the recordings of all the live sessions). This means whether you want to finish the course in 12 days or 12 months, you can work at your own pace and still go back to reference the material for a full year.

Testimonials

Hear from students that completed Analyst Academy.

program content

Fundamental Foundations, Implementation & Execution

Analyst Academy self-paced fundamental content is divided into 15 modules. Click on a module to expand and learn more.

    • Fundamental analysis importance in market economies

    • Myth of efficient markets and reality

    • Four reasons why markets are not efficient

    • Alpha load and forms of mispricing

    • Recipe: skills, process, sound judgmentIdea generation and 10% mindset

    • Role of process and judgment in forming belief

    • Voting machine vs weighing machine

    • Goal: Identify mispricings, harvest alpha

    • Pareto distribution and top performer challenges

    • Buyside primer: structure, roles, investment objectives

    • Limited partners (LPs) and their investment goals

    • Hedge funds: single-manager vs. multi-manager structures

    • Long-only funds: business model and challenges

    • Analyst role: idea generation to thesis development

    • Investment process: idea assessment to monitoring

    • Buyside mindset

    • Leveraging information edge to generate alpha

    • Anatomy of a top-performing buyside analyst

    • Creating a rigorous, repeatable investment process

    • Thesis-driven investing: a structured approach

    • Analyst's role: developing expertise and ideas

    • Coverage models impact thesis development latency

    • Nine-step thesis development process

    • Model construction: key tool for analysis

    • Structured due diligence: FEV framework

    • Identifying key drivers and differentiated insights

    • Constructing the thesis: key elements, delivery

    • Presenting the thesis: succinct, focused, humble

    • Idea maintenance: monitoring key drivers, catalysts

    • Stocks move due to supply and demand

    • Market price: capital-weighted consensus of value

    • Drivers: fundamentals, expectations, valuation, non-fundamental factors

    • Stock price differs from business value

    • EPS growth, revisions, re-ratings

    • Focus Five framework: key business value drivers

    • Model linkage helps identify key drivers

    • Exceptionalism, perception shifts, narratives

    • Risk reduction and visibility impact valuations

    • Inflections and themes

    • Efficiency: avoiding deep dives prematurely

    • Seeking mispriced stocks likely to have alpha

    • Compounders, exceptionalism, and change/confusion

    • Thematic investing: themes drive revenue and value

    • Pattern recognition from experience guides idea generation

    • FEV framework: fundamentals, expectations, valuation

    • Cyclical vs secular trends often misunderstood

    • Idea screening using multiple lenses and criteria

    • Ingredients of compelling ideas: mispricing and catalysts

    • Efficient idea vetting process with PM check-ins

    • The six reasons buyside analysts build models

    • A step-by-step raw build: TSLA walk-through

    • Common modeling challenges

    • Bells & whistles: incr margin, 2-year stack & more

    • Understanding consensus & estimate revisions

    • Seven hacks for identifying variance vs. street

    • Mental frameworks for better forecasting

    • The three statements for stock pickers

    • What your PM is looking for in your model

    • The model & stock selection: NVST case

    • Read 10-K, earnings calls, sell-side research

    • Build simple model, identify key drivers

    • Assess business quality, viability, momentum

    • Analyze unit economics and cash economics

    • Understand market expectations priced in

    • Develop bull, base, bear cases

    • Focus research on 3 key drivers

    • Evaluate management and capital allocation

    • Compare to peers on key metrics

    • Analyze catalysts and risk/reward setup

    • Learn industry through primers, experts, conferences

    • Develop universe tracker and comp sheets

    • Understand sector economics with industry P&L

    • Maintain coverage through regular blocking & tackling

    • Use model to identify inflections, catalysts

    • Connect dots between competitors and industry

    • Pursue both quick dives and deep dives

    • Long compounders with durable growth algorithms

    • Short melting ice cubes with structural headwinds

    • Pair trades can provide persistent alpha

AI Augmentation

Analyst Academy includes self-paced and live instruction on implementing AI into your process. Click on a module to expand and learn more.

    • Why AI matters for investment research

    • Process and judgment drive top-decile investing

    • Five observations on the AI landscape

    • AI as augmentation, not replacement

    • The "five buckets of now"

    • Three key debates: scaling, capex ROI, impact

    • LLMs: a strange, non-deterministic tool

    • Separating AI hype from reality

    • Power use cases: idea generation and risk

    • Pascal's wager: fluency as a hedge

    • The four phases of LLM mastery

    • A brief overview of alpha

    • Three sources of edge in markets

    • The "up to speed" workflow in practice

    • Getting fluent: how LLMs actually work

    • Strengths and weaknesses of LLMs

    • Tool selection: general-purpose vs finance-tuned

    • The six principles of effective prompting

    • Grounding models in trusted sources

    • Retrieval and context-window limitations

    • From hypothesis to thesis: going deeper

    • A step-by-step workflow augmentation playbook

    • Build a "council of experts"

    • Prompt generator to custom widget

    • Document and decompose your own process

    • Pareto-optimizing with ETIK to key drivers

    • Augmented idea generation and sniff tests

    • Idea buckets and pattern recognition

    • Two types of AI alpha: offload and signal

    • The one-person, billion-dollar hedge fund

    • Implementing AI across your process

    • Augmenting the risk case

    • Four dimensions of risk management

    • Why AI excels at risk evaluation

    • Custom risk trackers across the portfolio

    • Augmented generalist investing: the "bionic suit"

    • Building your "three golden processes"

    • Business quality and compounder widgets

    • Augmented specialist and pod workflows

    • NLP alpha and earnings-season co-pilots

    • Why management matters (and when it doesn't)

    • A framework to evaluate management

    • Doing a deep dive on a management team

    • The obsession with corporate access

    • A structured management meeting process

    • The role of investor relations

    • Navigating an investor conference

    • Analyzing stock-based compensation

    • Five options for deployment of cash

    • Analyzing stock buy-backs

    • Stocks move based on expectations vs reality

    • Management guidance, sell-side estimates influence expectations

    • Price-implied expectations uncover market assumptions

    • Buyside whisper reflects true market expectations

    • Assess positioning via ownership data, trading signals

    • Contrarian positioning can yield alpha but risks

    • Expectations gap: market view vs internal view

    • Differentiated, variant view key to generating alpha

    • Core debate, key drivers guide expectations work

    • Critical questions: situation overview, differentiation, monetization path

    • Stock valuation based on discounted cash flows

    • Key approaches: DCF, multiples, normalized earnings

    • Multiples are shorthand for a DCF

    • P/E roll-forward approach

    • Choosing an appropriate multiple

    • Earnings power approach

    • Develop risk/reward framework

    • Disaggregate stock returns

    • Create scenario trees with weighted outcomes

    • Be aware of terminal value perception

    • Short selling basics and mechanics

    • Challenges and risks of shorting stocks

    • Shorting approaches: alpha, structural, event-driven, hedging

    • Identifying short ideas: fundamentals, expectations, valuation

    • Short alpha buckets and types of shorts

    • Importance of timing and risk management

    • Earnings season tactics for shorts

    • De-grossing: reducing exposure in tough markets

    • Quantitative short selection framework

    • Applying short selling mindset to long-investing

    • Earnings season drives outsized stock volatility

    • Expectations gap and catalyst framework explained

    • Preparing for earnings: previews, positioning, catalysts

    • Updating models and assessing results efficiently

    • Evaluating surprise factor and algorithmic shifts

    • Estimating upside/downside moves and risk/reward

    • Tactics for earnings day and beyond

    • Analyzing read-throughs and adapting expectations bar

    • Identifying spring-loaded and peak-on-peak setups

    • Reacting to prints and fading overreactions

    • Turn a promising idea into compelling thesis

    • Construct thesis using firm's preferred format

    • Key elements: summary, thesis points, risks, valuation

    • Tell a story with strong supporting data

    • Anticipate questions and prepare concise responses

    • Deliver pitch succinctly balancing confidence and humility

    • Follow up promptly on any open questions

    • Avoid thesis creep using a trading plan

    • Conduct pre-mortem and post-mortem using thesis document

    • When evaluating pitches, prepare to poke holes

    • Rank stocks using reward/risk and qualitative scores

    • Idea stack: long and short book rankings

    • Three-year double: EPS growth and P/E expansion

    • Risk management: VaR, quant models, event frameworks

    • MIC: market view, internal view, convergence

    • FEV: fundamentals, expectations, valuation for idea generation

    • Achieving ETIK, focusing on key drivers (KDs)

    • Communicate idea with structured pitch script

    • Portfolio construction balancing risk/reward across ideas

    • Analyst progression: junior to "full stack" partner

    • Using AI to surface potential mispricings faster

    • Screening idea universes with AI-assisted lenses

    • Recognizing patterns across companies, sectors, cycles

    • Spotting change, confusion, and inflection signals

    • Augmenting thematic idea generation with AI

    • Prompting techniques for higher-quality idea flow

    • Separating signal from noise in AI outputs

    • Triaging ideas before committing to deep work

    • Where human judgment still leads the process

    • Guardrails: verifying AI-generated leads and claims

    • Accelerating first-pass work on a new name

    • Using AI to digest 10-Ks, calls, filings

    • Mapping business quality, drivers, and unit economics

    • Surfacing key debates and differentiated questions

    • Drafting bull, base, and bear scenarios

    • Comparing companies and peers more efficiently

    • Pressure-testing a thesis with AI as sparring partner

    • Organizing research notes and diligence trails

    • Keeping the analyst's judgment in the driver's seat

    • Fact-checking and sourcing AI-assisted findings

    • Where AI fits in the modeling workflow

    • Speeding up raw model builds and structure

    • Populating and sanity-checking historical data

    • Identifying key drivers and model linkages

    • Exploring scenarios and sensitivities with AI

    • Comparing your estimates against consensus

    • Common pitfalls when AI touches a model

    • Preserving auditability and analyst ownership

    • Documenting assumptions clearly and consistently

    • Verifying outputs before they inform decisions

    • Preparing for prints more efficiently with AI

    • Building previews, expectations, and catalyst maps

    • Rapidly digesting results and management commentary

    • Assessing surprise factor and estimate revisions

    • Drawing read-throughs across related companies

    • Updating models and notes under time pressure

    • Framing risk/reward around the event

    • Reacting to reactions: overreactions vs. real change

    • Staying disciplined amid high-volume information

    • Checking AI takeaways against primary sources

wHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

High Potential Undergrads/MBAs

Looking to develop a skillset that will differentiate in interviews.

Investment Adjacent
Teams

Understand the work of the investment teams that you collaborate with.

Sell-side
Juniors

Looking for the buyside approach to better serve their buyside clients.

New Buyside Analysts

Analysts with 0-2 years learning the ropes and need help ramping.

Not sure if Analyst Academy is right for you?

Schedule a call with Fundamental Edge to discuss your needs

Experienced Buyside Analysts

Looking for a refresher, or analysts struggling to meet demands of the seat.

What you’ll walk away with

Think like a buyside analyst

Spot opportunities and assess upside/downside the way real investors do, not the way textbooks describe it.

Build repeatable frameworks

Stop flailing. Analyze with structure and confidence using frameworks that have real currency with professional investors.

Accelerate your timeline

Compress years of chaotic osmotic learning into months. Contribute faster, earn trust faster, advance faster.

Ask better questions

A strong foundation means your PM conversations move to higher ground. Sharper questions, more productive dialogue, less second-guessing.

Monitor positions after the pitch

Learn how to track and manage stocks already in the portfolio, a skill most training programs ignore entirely.

Speak with authority

Discuss stocks and key value drivers with clarity in meetings, interviews, and PM conversations.

without a structured process…

  • You waste years building frameworks that could have been built in months

  • Your development stays jagged and episodic

  • You're overlooked as expectations climb while your process doesn't

  • Credibility with your PM and team erodes

  • Your self-belief takes a hit

  • Compounding earnings are delayed by years

with analyst
academy…

  • Avoid learning costly mistakes the hard way

  • Advance your career instead of stagnating

  • Develop institutional frameworks that decision makers look for

  • Become a real investor instead of a hopeful observer

  • Build credibility that opens doors

  • Compress years of learning into months

enroll now

FAQs

  • Compiling disparate sources takes time and produces an inconsistent, non-repeatable framework. Analyst Academy gives you an organized, proven version. Built once, used forever.

  • The core curriculum is 40h and fully self-paced. Live sessions and guest speakers are optional. Engage on your own schedule. You have full access to all materials for one year from enrollment.

  • All live sessions are fully optional and recorded. You can also submit questions via our mailbag and receive answers async.

  • Yes. Many of our students are firm-sponsored. Your firm may have a training budget for exactly this type of expense. Analyst Academy also accepts soft dollars. Email info@fundamentedge.com for details.

  • Payment plans are available and displayed at checkout.

Ready to stop spinning your wheels and start thriving on the buyside?

Join the hundreds of analysts across every mandate on the buyside who are building the frameworks that earn PM trust and accelerate careers.

enroll today