How to develop an investor mindset (PE interviews)?

I'm a rising senior with a FT offer at an EB looking to do some light reading and preparation over the next year before on-cycle kicks off. Thing is, while I have some familiarity with finance concepts/accounting, I don't think I have much of an investors mindset. I don't know how to analyze companies besides the basic financial metrics and maybe a basic porter's five forces analysis of the industry, but my investing fluency is lacking. So how should I go about improving this? Any books or PE guides that are especially helpful for investing mindset improvement? Thanks!

6 Comments
 

It’s less rigid than you make it out to be. Just need to be able to dissect a business in how it makes money (what drives revenue / costs).

You can peel back layers however far to understand the drivers -> macroeconomic environment all the way to customer demographic in x region.

Have a framework for how you think about things. Ratios are important, but they only tell you so much. 60% EBITDA margin sounds nice but then you realize they have 30% CapEx spend.

 

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