Practitioner Courses

We start with courses offered by former practitioners as these are widely considered to be the most cost-effective and time-efficient solution to accelerating the learning curve for equity investors.

1. The main protagonists here are:

   Steve Clapham’s Behind the Balance Sheet

   Ted Seides’ Capital Allocators University

   Brett Caughran’s Fundament Edge

   Florian Homm’s investing courses

   Matthew Craston’s Finance Map

   Let’s look at them in a little more detail.

   Behind the Balance Sheet

   Behind the Balance Sheet was founded by Stephen Clapham. He has some credibility in the space as he is the former partner of a Tiger Cub hedge fund and has 25+ years of experience as an analyst. Apart from his online school, where he offers a range of investing courses, Clapham also trains professionals at leading institutions like Fidelity, Wellington, Baillie Gifford, and Schroders. 

   Clapham’s podcast has interviewed famous names like Mario Gabelli, Grant Williams, Jeremy Hosking, and Egerton Partners veteran, John Armitage, who is one of the top hedge fund managers in the world. 

   Clapham also published quite a successful book, The Smart Money Method and he has a Substack so prospective students can easily gauge if he knows what he is talking about. Spoiler: looks like he does. 

   Their main online product appears to be Analyst Academy which is a comprehensive course containing all you need to learn to become a serious investor. We have seen a few of the lectures and the content seems spot on although the production quality of his videos is not as good as some of the bigger schools and producers – it’s not slick like Masterclass but the content seems high-quality. We think that’s the key to success. At £1800, the course is no bargain, but you get what you pay for and it could be a good investment.

   Capital Allocators University

   This offering comes from former allocator Ted Seides. He has one of the top investing podcasts with some amazing guests and there is no question he knows what he is talking about. He has also published a successful book which is a further demonstration of his credentials.

   His courses feature some of the leading commentators across a range of disciplines. Seides is an accomplished fund investor and famously lost a $1m bet with Warren Buffett. His courses are highly likely to be good quality and deliver what they say “on the tin”. 

   At $2500 for a one-day course in New York, it’s not a bargain basement but you will doubtless make good contacts and the networking alone could be worth the price. Ted, please invite us so we can give a more informed assessment.

   Fundamental Edge

   This cohort-based course is offered by Brett Caughran  – a former hedge fund analyst turned academic. Launched in late 2022, the cost was originally advertised as $15,000 per programme and it’s now offered at $5400. It’s still a lot of money, the most expensive option here.

   There are 12 modules with some additional guest speakers, no one of whom we know other than Aswath Damodoran who is amazing, but his lectures are also available for free!

   Caughran has some credibility as a former analyst at several different hedge funds. He has 13 years of buy-side experience and worked at 6 different firms, before becoming an academic. That job history should not necessarily count against him as training should be easier than picking stocks. 

   Florian Homm 

   Homm now offers a series of investing courses. He sells these through a membership application so it looks like a subscription model with bronze/silver/gold tiers having 500 members, 150 members, and 50 members. 

   The offering sounds credible and Homm is a former hedge fund manager (he is apparently wanted for securities fraud in the US but remains in Germany which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the USA). 

   The courses are in German, so this is probably not that relevant for students elsewhere. 

   Finance Map

   These are courses from former investment banker Matthew Craston on personal investment, financial statements and two others. Classes are three hours and there are lots of testimonials on the website but they are mainly unnamed and there is no pricing.

   The content for the financial statements course included everything from debits and credits to ev/ebitda multiples and there is a limit to what you can cover in 3 hours so we assume this is a course intended for beginners and we assume it’s probably delivered in person in London.