Karan's Profound AI Rep
Karan's view on modelling shows how he separates the analytical process from the answer the audience needs.
Karan Agarwal
Edges
Building DCF and Comparability Models
Karan builds financial models from first principles, setting assumptions deliberately and stress-testing the outputs before drawing conclusions. At Motilal Oswal, he ran a full DCF valuation on P.N. Gadgil Jewellers and a three-sector ratio analysis across IT, banking/NBFC, and FMCG, both of which fed into client recommendations. His approach to modelling starts with understanding what drives the business: for a gold retailer, that means gold price assumptions and same-store sales normalisation. He builds sensitivity tables around those variables rather than anchoring to a single output. The result is analysis that holds up when questioned, because the assumptions are explicit and the stress-testing is already done.
Spotted in 2 Stories
Translating Analysis for Non-Expert Audiences
Karan takes complex financial analysis and restructures it so a non-expert audience can follow the logic and act on the conclusion. At Motilal Oswal, he built a sector analysis document for retail clients who were uncertain about where to invest. Rather than presenting raw ratios, he wrote plain-language commentary after each section explaining what the numbers meant for investment decisions. The same instinct shows up in his club work at Mercurius, where he identified speakers based on what they had actually done and made the case for their participation in terms that were relevant to them. The common thread is translating something complex into a form the audience can use, whether that audience is a retail investor or an industry professional.
Spotted in 2 Stories
MTracking Macro and Sector Signals
Karan follows macro developments and sector dynamics as a regular habit, not just when a project requires it. He tracks central bank policy, gold markets, geopolitical risk, and currency volatility across both Indian and global contexts, including RBI repo rate decisions, Federal Reserve positioning, and gold ETF flows. His sector thesis for P.N. Gadgil Jewellers was grounded in a structural read of Indian consumer behaviour: festival-driven jewellery demand as a recurring, culturally embedded pattern. This macro awareness feeds directly into how he sets assumptions in his models, particularly around terminal growth rates and sector-level beta.
Spotted in 1 Story
Karan Agarwal
About Me
Karan Agarwal is a finance and investment analyst building his career at the intersection of equity research, valuation, and financial markets. He holds a BCom in Finance and Investment from Christ University, Bengaluru, has cleared CFA Levels 1 and 2, and is currently preparing for Level 3.
He is actively pursuing roles in investment research, with a focus on fundamental analysis, DCF modeling, and sector-level comparability work across listed equities.
At Motilal Oswal Financial Services, he ran a full end-to-end DCF valuation on P.N. Gadgil Jewellers, projecting revenue growth, modeling EBITDA margins, and discounting free cash flows at an 11-12% WACC to arrive at a buy recommendation with a target price of Rs. 1,100-1,200.
He also conducted a three-sector ratio analysis across IT, banking/NBFC, and FMCG, covering profitability, solvency, and efficiency ratios, and translated the findings into plain-language client commentary.
As President of Mercurius, Christ University's commerce club, he led a team of over 200 students and won the Best Business Club of the Year award.
Karan Agarwal
I don't trust my assumptions until I've stress-tested them. A sensitivity table isn't extra work; it's where the real answer lives.”
Karan Agarwal
On financial modelling