Jason,

Love the post.

I started in the business in 1985 and spent five years at Value Line doing earnings projections, and inputting the 10K and annual report into the database. In retrospect, this was invaluable experience in practical accounting for financial forecasting. Unfortunately, this experience is fading as more advisors and wealth managers abandon individual stocks for ETFs.

You noted in point one: "Using Generalized Accounting Statements" Modern CFAs are trained to use ETFs, so why even bother to understand individual companies? This bodes ill for fluency in accounting.

Point two: Not understanding the reflexivity of income/cash flow/balance sheet.

Allow me to share a war story...

In 1985 I suggested that Value Line add Microsoft to its list of covered companies since I covered software and service stocks at the time. I projected the cash flow numbers five years into the future, as required, and was shocked at how much money this business would generate. Software companies have incredible gross margins, and this is the natural result.

I hope the next generation of analysts still study income/cash flows/balance sheets, since this gives you an intuitive feel for corporate wealth creation.

Sincerely,
Rob