This session is designed for rising college sophomores. We will walk through a DCF from first principles, using a simple business example to understand how investors estimate future cash flows and convert them into a present-day valuation. Students will learn the intuition behind each component of a DCF.
The goal is not to memorize formulas, but to understand why a DCF works and how finance professionals use it to determine what a business is worth.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
Understand the key components of a DCF model.
Explain the concept of discounting future cash flows.
Understand how assumptions impact valuation.
Calculate a basic DCF valuation.
Interpret the results of a DCF analysis.
Prerequisite: Familiarity with basic income statement concepts is recommended, but no prior modeling experience is required.
