Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 11, 2023

In the month since, I have added two more data updates, one on US equities and one on interest rates , but my attention was drawn away by other interesting stories. Default Risk As with individuals and businesses, governments (sovereigns) borrow money and sometimes struggle to pay them back, leading to to the specter of sovereign default.

Risk Premium 76

Risk Premium Start-ups Equity Marketability 76

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 first has been the steep rise in treasury rates in the last twelve weeks, as investors reassess expected economic growth over the rest of the year and worry about inflation.

Equity 52

Equity Risk-free Rate Treasury Start-ups 52

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

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. Other ratings agencies have also taken similar actions.

Start-ups 100

Start-ups Risk Premium Equity Market Capitalization 100

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

In this post, I will focus on corporate debt in 2023, keeping in mind that it was a year where the tradeoffs changed, as interest rates rose to pre-2008 levels, and putting at risk those firms that had borrowed to capacity, or even beyond, at low interest rates.

Equity 52

Equity EBITDA Start-ups Net Debt 52

Simply Treasury

AUGUST 2, 2022

The idea is not new to encourage companies to increase their capitalization and reduce their bank debt (partly through more recourse to the capital market - CMU project). The rate would be calculated based on a 10-year "risk-free interest" rate depending on the currency, increased by a 1% risk premium (1.5%

Equity 52

Equity Risk Premium Banking Finance 52

Brian DeChesare

MAY 3, 2023

But people who aim for investment banking roles are very much into those bells and whistles, so questions about the DDM and other “exotic” methodologies began rolling in. To be fair, in some industries – like commercial banks and insurance within FIG – the DDM is a core valuation methodology.

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Dividends Terminal Value Enterprise Value Equity 64

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.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Market Capitalization Equity Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

AUGUST 15, 2023

In every introductory finance class, you begin with the notion of a risk-free investment, and the rate on that investment becomes the base on which you build, to get to expected returns on risky assets and investments. What is a risk free investment?

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Risk-free Rate Treasury Risk Premium Start-ups 80

Andrew Stolz

MARCH 20, 2020

The cost of capital also reflects the riskiness of a firm which reflects the required rate of return. A firm borrows from banks or bondholders and it has to pay the interest. It can also imply a minimum required rate of return that an investor is willing to hold stock. WACC is also viewed as appropriate for a discount rate.

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Beta Capital Structure Risk-free Rate Weighted Average Cost of Capital 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.

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Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 95

Equilest

MARCH 17, 2022

This result over several years is then valued by discounting, at a discount rate, symboled by i, taking into account the risk that this performance will not be achieved. Business value = Typical business earnings divided by discount rate VE = Result / i. The expected annual rate of return in perpetuity. x250% per year.

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Business Valuation EBIT EBITDA Discounted Cash Flow 40

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 16, 2024

Deconstructing Risk While we may use statistical measures like volatility or correlation to measure risk in practice, risk is not a statistical abstraction. Its impact is not just financial, but emotional and physical, and it predates markets.

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Risk Premium Start-ups Beta Marketability 74

ThomsonReuters

MAY 6, 2021

A discounted cash flow approach involves projecting a stream of cash flows for an item and then applying a discount rate to those cash flows to calculate a single value or a range of values for that item. Developing Assumptions for Expected Cash Flows and the Discount Rate. The discount rate. Discount Rate.

Discounted Cash Flow 52

Discounted Cash Flow Risk-free Rate Risk Premium Intangible Assets 52

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

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.

Equity 79

Equity Book Value Start-ups Corporate Finance 79

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. Understanding these differences is key to understanding why interest rates vary across currencies and changes in exchange rates over time. How do you measure inflation?

Treasury 55

Treasury Start-ups Risk Premium Price to Book 55

Appraisal Rights

JUNE 5, 2017

Further to our prior post about Delaware’s two new appraisal decisions, SWS Group was a small, struggling bank holding company that merged on January 1, 2015 into one of its own substantial creditors, Hilltop Holdings. Stockholders of SWS received a mix of cash and Hilltop stock worth $6.92 at closing. below the merger price.

Beta 40

Beta Risk Premium Capital Structure Discounted Cash Flow 40

Musings on Markets

JULY 25, 2023

The other is pragmatic , since it is almost impossible to value a company or business, without a clear sense of how risk exposure varies across the world, since for many companies, either the inputs to or their production processes are in foreign markets or the output is outside domestic markets.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Equity Start-ups Risk-free Rate 52

Musings on Markets

MARCH 28, 2022

That judgment may be harsh, but as the Russian hostilities in Ukraine shake up markets, the weakest links in the ESG chain are being exposed, and as the same old rationalizations and excuses get rolled out, I believe that a moment of reckoning is arriving for the concept. A Bloomberg Quint study of ESG funds uncovered that they had $8.3

Start-ups 113

Start-ups Alpha Marketability Risk Premium 113