Musings on Markets

JANUARY 27, 2021

In my last post , I described the wild ride that the price of risk took in 2020, with equity risk premiums and default spreads initially sky rocketing, as the virus led to global economic shutdowns, and then just as abruptly dropping back to pre-crisis levels over the course of the year.

Start-ups 52

Start-ups Marketability Equity Treasury 52

Musings on Markets

MAY 6, 2022

It is precisely because we have been spoiled by a decade of low and stable inflation that the inflation numbers in 2021 and 2022 came as such a surprise to economists, investors and even the Fed. As the inflation bogeyman returns, the worries of what may need to happen to the economy to bring inflation back under control have also mounted.

Risk Premium 92

Risk Premium Treasury Start-ups Equity 92

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 20, 2021

Note that nothing that I have said so far is premised on modern portfolio theory, or any academic view of risk premiums. It is true that economists have researched risk aversion for centuries and concluded that investors are collectively risk averse, and that the level of risk aversion varies across age groups, income levels and time.

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 8, 2022

Those measures took a beating in 2020, as COVID decimated the earnings of companies in many sectors and regions of the world, and while 2021 was a return to some degree of normalcy, there is still damage that has to be worked through. Louis, FRED , which contains historical data on almost every macroeconomic variable, at least for the US.

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Risk Premium Start-ups Market Capitalization Corporate Finance 91

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 27, 2022

Inflation numbers have been coming in high now, for more than a year, but for much of the early part of 2021, bankers, investors and politicians seemed to be either in denial or casually dismissive of its potential for damage.

Risk-free Rate 84

Risk-free Rate Treasury Price to Book Start-ups 84

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 30, 2023

Just as rising equity risk premiums push up the cost of equity, rising default spreads push up the cost of debt of companies, with the added complication of higher default risk for those companies that had pushed to the limits of their borrowing capacity in a low interest-rate environment.

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Treasury Start-ups Risk Premium Equity 74

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 21, 2023

It is the nature of stocks that you have good years and bad ones, and much as we like to forget about the latter during market booms, they recur at regular intervals, if for no other reason than to remind us that risk is not an abstraction, and that stocks don't always win, even in the long term.

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Equity Risk Premium Start-ups Dividends 70

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

The first is to see how the increase in inflation in 2021 and 2021 has played out in profitability for companies, since inflation can increase profits for some firms, and lower them for others. the returns you can make on investments of equivalent risk, and that game became a lot more difficult to win in 2022.

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Equity Start-ups Risk Premium Risk-free Rate 52

Musings on Markets

MARCH 25, 2021

The first quarter of 2021 has been, for the most part, a good time for equity markets, but there have been surprises. The Interest Rates Story To me the biggest story of markets in 2021 has been the rise of interest rates, especially at the long end of the maturity spectrum. for 2021 and inflation of 2.2%

Equity 52

Equity Risk-free Rate Treasury Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 17, 2024

To capture the market's mood, I back out the expected return (and equity risk premium) that investors are pricing in, through an implied equity risk premium: Put simply, the expected return is an internal rate of return derived from the pricing of stocks, and the expected cash flows from holding them, and is akin to a yield to maturity on bonds.

Risk Premium 77

Risk Premium Start-ups Equity Treasury 77

Musings on Markets

MARCH 19, 2022

Russia was also a leading exporter of these commodities, with a disproportionately large share of its oil and gas production going to Europe; in 2021, Russian gas accounted to 45% of EU gas imports. Ukraine is also primarily a natural resource producer, especially iron ore, albeit on a smaller scale.

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Start-ups Risk Premium Equity Market Capitalization 100

Musings on Markets

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

In 2021, looking at the company, I feel more convinced than I was a few years that it is, at its core, an automobile company, and while it will continue to derive revenues from batteries and perhaps even software, its pathway to becoming a trillion dollar market cap company still runs through the "car company" story.

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Musings on Markets

AUGUST 15, 2023

Expected returns for Risky Investments : The risk-free rate becomes the base on which you build to estimate expected returns on all other investments. For instance, if you read my last post on equity risk premiums , I described the equity risk premium as the additional return you would demand, over and above the risk free rate.

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Risk-free Rate Treasury Risk Premium Start-ups 80

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Relative Risk Measures Before we embark on how to measure relative risk, where there can be substantial disagreement, let me start with a statement on which there should be agreement. By the same token, Embraer and TCS are global firms that happen to be incorporated in Brazil and India, respectively.

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Risk Premium Beta Start-ups Equity 67

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 12, 2021

pm (New York time) All three classes start on February 1, 2021 and end on May 10, 2021. The class times for the coming semester are below: Corporate Finance: Mondays & Wednesdays, 12.30 pm (New York time) Valuation (MBA): Mondays & Wednesdays, 2.00 pm (New York time) Valuation (Undergraduate): Mondays & Wednesdays, 3.30

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Musings on Markets

JULY 17, 2023

Exacerbating the pain, corporate default spreads rose during the course of 2022: While default spreads rose across ratings classes, the rise was much more pronounced for the lowest ratings classes, part of a bigger story about risk capital that spilled across markets and asset classes.

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Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 95

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

Beta & Risk 1. Equity Risk Premiums 2. I also have implied equity risk premiums (forward-looking and dynamic estimate of what investors are pricing stocks to earn in the future) for the S&P 500 going back annually to 1960 and monthly to 2008, and equity risk premiums for countries. Buybacks 2.

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Dividends Risk Premium Equity Book Value 98

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

When valuing or analyzing a company, I find myself looking for and using macro data (risk premiums, default spreads, tax rates) and industry-level data on profitability, risk and leverage. I do report on a few market-wide data items especially on risk premiums for both equity and debt. Debt breakdown 2.

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Risk Premium Dividends EBITDA Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 26, 2023

My last valuation of Tesla was in November 2021, towards its market peak, and given its steep fall from grace, in conjunction with Elon Musk's Twitter experiment, it is time for a revisit. In this section, I will begin by looking at the evolution of my Tesla value from 2013 to 2021, and then present my updated valuation of the company.

Start-ups 80

Start-ups Marketability Risk Premium Equity 80

Musings on Markets

MAY 24, 2021

As we approach the mid point of 2021, financial markets, for the most part, have had a good year so far. Source Data The two estimates move together much of the time, but the consumer expectations are consistently higher, and at the end of April 2021, the consumer survey was forecasting inflation of 3.2%, about 1.1%

Treasury 55

Treasury Start-ups Risk Premium Price to Book 55

Musings on Markets

JULY 22, 2021

Zomato, an Indian online food-delivery company, was opened up to public market investors on July 14, 2021, and its market debut is being watched for clues by a number of other online ventures in India, waiting in the wings to go public. The service was initiated in 2017 and it had 1.5

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Marketability Start-ups Equity Price to Book 86

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 31, 2024

In my last three posts, I looked at the macro (equity risk premiums, default spreads, risk free rates) and micro (company risk measures) that feed into the expected returns we demand on investments, and argued that these expected returns become hurdle rates for businesses, in the form of costs of equity and capital.

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Equity Book Value Start-ups Corporate Finance 79

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

A few of you did take issue with the fact that the growth rate that I used for the first five years dropped from 35%, in my November 2021 valuation , to 24%, in my most recent one. There is not much room to maneuver on either number, since half of all US companies have costs of capital between 7.3% It was the reason that I argued at a $1.2

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Start-ups Risk-free Rate Market Capitalization Marketability 99

Musings on Markets

JULY 25, 2023

Equity Risk across Countries Default risk measures how much risk investors are exposed to, when investing in bonds issued by a government, but when you own a business, or the equity in that business, your risk exposure is not just magnified, but also broader.

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Risk Premium Equity Start-ups Risk-free Rate 52

Musings on Markets

MAY 11, 2021

With stocks, I compute this pre-personal tax return at the start of every month, using the current level of index and expected cash flows to back out an internal rate of return; this is the basis for the implied equity risk premium. It is one more reason that blindly using historical risk premiums can lead to static and strange values.

Dividends 52

Dividends Start-ups Risk Premium Treasury 52

Musings on Markets

MARCH 28, 2022

Risk Surge and Economic Viability : In my last post, I noted the surge in Russia's default spread and country risk premium, making it one of the riskiest parts of the world to operate in, for any business. A Skeptical Look at ESG ESG: The Goodness Gravy Train rolls on (September 2021).

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Start-ups Alpha Marketability Risk Premium 113