Mastering the Fundamentals of Finance: Building Skills and Intuition

Mastering the Fundamentals of Finance: Building Skills and Intuition presents students with a uniquely structured approach to learning finance. Casting aside the traditional approach, the text emphasizes growth-focused valuation skills and the explicit development of intuition. The text features a unique modular design with twelve chapters supported by over thirty optional appendices. This unique structure allows students and instructors the flexibility to adjust their level of exposure to various topics, making the text appropriate for use at a wide range of universities. In Part I, students develop critical valuation skills with an emphasis on cash flow growth and the impact of inflation. Part II explores how cash flows are estimated for the three most popular investments categories: assets, debt, and equity. Part III discusses how to estimate risk-adjusted discount rates for the pricing of assets, debt, and equity. End-of-chapter problems, follow-up commentaries, color-coded multi-line mathematics, and high-quality cash flow timelines support learning and mastery. The revised first edition features a new version of the calculator app created by the author (available in app stores for free download), as well as a new appendix, 4-B, which covers using the Goal Seek tool to extend Microsoft Excel's capabilities. Mastering the Fundamentals of Finance is highly effective and suitable for any introductory finance course.

About the Author :
Larry Gorman is a professor of finance in the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly. He holds a Ph.D. in finance from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, an M.B.A. from Western Washington University, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Washington State University. Professor Gorman served for eight years as the exclusive finance trainer for Apple worldwide. He has taught finance to graduate students and global executives in Bangkok, Beijing, Cape Town, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney. He has published sixteen academic papers in finance and biology and has been voted by students as the most outstanding finance professor for thirteen consecutive years at Cal Poly.

Review :
"Gorman covers finance foundations in a unique and novel fashion." Michael B. McDonald IV, Ph.D., Finance Professor and Corporate Consultant, Fairfield University "Larry Gorman's Mastering the Fundamentals of Finance: Building Skills and Intuition has made me rethink how I should teach the fundamentals of finance." Ronald L. Moy, Associate Professor of Economics and Finance, The Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John's University "The author provides a methodical approach to time-value-of-money concepts that is all-encompassing." Bruce J. Toews, Associate Dean and Professor of Accounting and Finance, Walla Walla University "The text provides a refreshing computational approach to learn corporate finance, which sets it apart from other texts in the market." K. Matthew Wong, Professor of Economics and Finance, The Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John's University "The detail with which solutions to problems are presented is impressive. You can tell the writer has seen where students tend to struggle with understanding finance and has put a great deal of thought into how to resolve these misunderstandings within the book. I do indeed believe that most students, if they take the time to actively read the book and solve the problems while reading through, should be able to understand the material presented." Michael Schafer, Associate Professor of Business, Providence College