Volume II — The Practitioner’s Codex

Finance Education Series · Volume II

The Practitioner’s
Codex

Finance’s Next Level — From Reading the System to Running the Numbers · Version 2.1 · Complete · July 2026

The direct sequel to How the Global Economy Really Works. Where Volume I built the map of the system, Volume II hands over the instruments — the technical craft of valuation, deal-structuring, risk, governance, and market mechanics that separate understanding finance from practicing it. 28 chapters. Click any part below to jump straight there.

Part 0: Bridge & Orientation Part 1: Corporate Finance & Valuation Part 2: M&A, PE & LBOs Part 3: Fixed Income Part 4: Derivatives Part 5: Portfolio Theory Part 6: Forensic Accounting Part 7: Governance & Search Part 8: Alternatives Part 9: Regulation Part 10: Financial History Part 11: Fintech & Crypto Part 12: The Full Stitch II

1. Welcome to Volume II: How This Codex Builds on Volume I and What Comes Next

Part 0 Bridge & Orientation

2. What Volume II Adds: The Escalation Map From Volume I to Practitioner Level

Part 1 Corporate Finance & Valuation

3. From Company Numbers to Company Value: DCF, WACC, CAPM, and Capital Structure 4. Comps, Precedents, and Sum-of-the-Parts: Triangulating What a Business Is Worth

Part 2 M&A, Private Equity & LBOs

5. From Buying a Stock to Buying a Company: Deal Structures, Buyers, and Synergies 6. Inside the LBO: Leverage, the Debt Paydown Model, and How Private Equity Funds Work 7. Hostile Takeovers and Takeover Defenses: When M&A Turns Adversarial

Part 3 Fixed Income & Bond Mathematics

8. Bond Pricing, Duration, Convexity, and Reading the Yield Curve 9. The Repo Market: The Plumbing Beneath Fixed Income

Part 4 Derivatives, Properly Priced

10. Futures, Options, the Greeks, and Black-Scholes: Pricing Derivatives Properly 11. Swaps, Credit Default Swaps, and Hedging vs Speculation in Practice

Part 5 Portfolio Theory & Quant Risk

12. Diversification, Modern Portfolio Theory, and the Sharpe Ratio 13. Value at Risk, Monte Carlo Simulation, and Factor Investing

Part 6 Accounting, Forensically

14. GAAP vs IFRS, Revenue Recognition, and Off-Balance-Sheet Games 15. Deferred Tax, Depreciation Choices, and the Forensic Toolkit: Famous Cases as Pattern Templates

Part 7 Governance & Executive Search

16. CEO Succession Planning and the Executive Search Process 17. Executive Pay, C-Suite Hiring, Activist Investors, and Related-Party Deals

Part 8 Alternative Investments

18. What Makes an Investment Alternative: Hedge Fund and Quant Strategies 19. Real Assets, Private Credit, Family Offices, and Sovereign Wealth Funds

Part 9 Regulation & Financial Law

20. Insider Trading, AML/KYC, Sanctions, and Regulatory Arbitrage 21. The Three Lines of Defense and Personal Accountability for Client Assets

Part 10 Financial History’s Other Crises

22. Six Financial Crises Every Practitioner Should Know: From Tulip Mania to the Dot-Com Crash 23. The Repeating Pattern: What Every Bubble and Crisis Shares

Part 11 Fintech, Crypto & the Next Monetary Layer

24. Blockchain, Bitcoin, Smart Contracts, and Stablecoins Explained 25. CBDCs, DeFi, and Where Crypto Fits in Monetary History

Part 12 The Full Stitch II

26. Three Practitioner Case Studies: LBOs, Scandals, and Currency Crises 27. The Full Stitch II Exam: Test Your Practitioner-Level Knowledge 28. The Complete Practitioner: Closing Volume II