Musings on Markets

JANUARY 19, 2022

If equity markets surprised us with their resilience in 2020, not just weathering a pandemic for the ages, but prospering in its midst, US equity markets, in particular, managed to find light even in the darkest news stories, and continued their rise through 2021. The year that was.

Risk Premium 80

Risk Premium Risk-free Rate Start-ups Equity 80

Musings on Markets

MARCH 19, 2022

As the world's attention is focused on the war in the Ukraine, it is the human toll, in death and injury, that should get our immediate attention, and you may find a focus on economics and markets to be callous. The increase in default spreads was not restricted to foreign markets, as fear also pushed up spreads in the corporate bond market.

Start-ups 100

Start-ups Risk Premium Equity Market Capitalization 100

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

I spent the first week of 2021 in the same way that I have spent the first week of every year since 1995, collecting data on publicly traded companies and analyzing how they navigated the cross currents of the prior year, both in operating and market value terms.

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Risk Premium Market Capitalization Equity Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JULY 17, 2023

I am not a market prognosticator for a simple reason. I am just not good at it, and the first six months of 2023 illustrate why market timing is often the impossible dream, something that every investor aspires to be successful at, but very few succeed on a consistent basis.

Marketability 95

Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 95

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 27, 2022

By the end of 2021, it was clear that this bout of inflation was not as transient a phenomenon as some had made it out to be, and the big question leading in 2022, for investors and markets, is how inflation will play out during the year, and beyond, and the consequences for stocks, bonds and currencies.

Risk-free Rate 84

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

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.

Equity 70

Equity Risk Premium Start-ups Dividends 70

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Note that this framework applies for all businesses, from the smallest, privately owned businesses, where debt takes the form of bank loans and even credit card borrowing and equity is owner savings, the largest publicly traded companies, where debt can be in the form of corporate bonds and equity is shares held by public market investors.

Equity 52

Equity EBITDA Start-ups Net Debt 52