Investment case study — a critical resource for learning value investing.

[i4value]

The value investing concept is straightforward — you buy undervalued companies and wait for the market to re-rate them. Valuation then is at the core of value investing.

However, to get a realistic estimate of what a company is worth, you need to understand its business — its products and services, its people, the strategy, and the competition it faces. As such valuation is not a number-crunching exercise.

If you are learning value investing, case studies are important resources as it presents real-life problems so that you can gain insights that may be difficult to learn from theory.

Secondly, a case study should also provide a template for you to analyze, value, and assess the risks of a company

The case study method of learning is the hallmark of the Harvard Business School. The idea is that by using real-life situations, you can gain insights that may be difficult to teach via lectures.

For a more detailed discussion refer to “Can we learn anything from investment case studies?”

[i4value]

Investment case studies can benefit both newbies and experts.

For the experts, I hope they provide alternative perspectives. I have used them as sanity checks

For the newbies, I hope that you use them in an active manner. Treat the case studies as complementary sources of learning. You would still need to gain the theoretical knowledge through the traditional sources. I have provided learning steps and what to look for when learning from case studies.