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Data Update 5 for 2023: The Earnings Test

Musings on Markets

Finally, I look at the aggregated values across all companies on all three income measures, across all global companies, again broken down by sector: Collectively, global companies reported $16.9 billion in gross profit in the last twelve months leading into 2023, but operating income drops off to $6.4

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Data Update 5 for 2024: Profitability - The End Game for Business?

Musings on Markets

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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Data Update 1 for 2024: The data speaks, but what does it say?

Musings on Markets

Standard Deviation in Equity/Firm Value 2. Book Value Multiples 3. Working capital needs Thus, I compute pricing multiples based on revenues (EV to Sales, Price to Sales), earnings (PE, PEG), book value (PBV, EV to Invested Capital) or cash flow proxies (EV to EBITDA). Fundamenal Growth in Operating Earnings 3.