Aswath Damodaran — Amazing Resource for Valuation & Corporate Finance
A massive collection of free lectures, valuation models, spreadsheets, datasets and research from NYU Stern professor Aswath Damodaran.
If you want to learn how to actually value a company, understand corporate finance, or build financial models, the resources created by Aswath Damodaran are among the best available online.
Damodaran is a professor at NYU Stern School of Business and has made a huge amount of his teaching material freely available online.
His website contains everything from complete university courses and lecture notes to valuation spreadsheets, datasets, company valuations and research papers.
What can you learn?
Valuation
This is probably the biggest reason to explore Damodaran's website.
You can learn different approaches to valuing a business, including:
- Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Valuation
- Relative Valuation
- Option Pricing
- Acquisition Valuation
- Economic Value Added (EVA)
- Value enhancement
The material goes much deeper than simply calculating a P/E ratio or applying a basic DCF formula.
Financial Modelling
Damodaran provides a large collection of Excel spreadsheets that can be used to understand and build valuation models.
These cover areas such as:
- DCF valuation
- Cost of capital
- Terminal value
- Growth rates
- Valuation multiples
- Risk premiums
- Capital structure
- Acquisitions
- Option pricing
- Company valuation
The spreadsheets are especially useful because you can study the model and see how the different assumptions affect the final valuation.
Free Courses & Lectures
His website also contains complete course material from his classes at NYU Stern.
You can find:
- Lecture notes
- Video lectures
- Class presentations
- Practice problems
- Quizzes and exams
- Assignments
- Reading material
- Project examples
There are courses covering valuation and corporate finance, including both undergraduate and MBA-level material.
Industry Data
One of the most useful parts of the website is the collection of industry-level financial data.
You can find datasets covering things such as:
- P/E ratios
- EV/EBITDA
- Price-to-book ratios
- Price-to-sales ratios
- Margins
- Growth
- Return on equity
- Cost of capital
- Equity risk premiums
This is extremely useful when you want to compare a company against its industry or understand what a reasonable valuation multiple might look like.
Company Valuations
Damodaran also provides examples of how companies can actually be valued.
These examples help connect the theory to real businesses and show how assumptions about growth, margins, risk and capital investment can change a company's estimated value.
Why I recommend it
What makes Damodaran's resources different is the depth.
A lot of investing websites teach you what a P/E ratio or DCF is. Damodaran goes much further and explains why the numbers matter and how they connect to the value of a business.
You can use the website at different levels:
Beginner → Learn valuation concepts
Intermediate → Study financial models and company analysis
Advanced → Build your own valuation models and work with industry data
Where should you start?
If you are new to valuation, I would recommend this order:
1. Learn the basics of valuation
↓
2. Learn DCF valuation
↓
3. Learn financial statements & corporate finance
↓
4. Study relative valuation
↓
5. Start using the spreadsheets
↓
6. Try valuing a real company yourself
The valuation section of the website provides material covering DCF, relative valuation, option pricing, acquisition valuation and other approaches, along with spreadsheets, datasets, examples and practice problems.
My Take
If you want to learn how professional-style company valuation actually works, bookmark this website.
There is a huge amount of material here, so it can feel overwhelming at first. You don't need to go through everything.
Personally, I prefer Aswath Damodaran's regular Corporate Finance lectures. They are a great way to build a strong understanding of how businesses, risk, investment decisions, financing and valuation fit together.
I would recommend starting with his regular Corporate Finance lectures, and then moving into his valuation material once you have the basics clear.
For someone interested in fundamental investing, equity research or financial modelling, this is one of the resources I would keep coming back to.
Best for: Intermediate → Advanced learners
Cost: Free
Focus: Corporate Finance, Valuation & Financial Modelling
This is an educational resource. Valuation models depend heavily on assumptions, and estimated intrinsic value should not be treated as a guaranteed future price.