Musings on Markets

JANUARY 10, 2025

It is the end of the first full week in 2025, and my data update for the year is now up and running, and I plan to use this post to describe my data sample, my processes for computing industry statistics and the links to finding them. In the table below, we compare the changes in regional market capitalizations (in $ millions) over time.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

JULY 18, 2025

In my classes and writing on corporate finance, I look at the motives for businesses retaining cash, as well as how much cash is too much cash. The Motives for holding Cash In my introductory finance classes, there was little discussion of cash holdings in companies, outside of the sessions on working capital.

Start-ups

Musings on Markets

AUGUST 19, 2024

In fact, the business life cycle has become an integral part of the corporate finance, valuation and investing classes that I teach, and in many of the posts that I have written on this blog. In 2022, I decided that I had hit critical mass, in terms of corporate life cycle content, and that the material could be organized as a book.

Corporate Finance

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

First, these categorizations were created close to twenty years ago, when I first started looking a global data, and many countries that were emerging markets then have developed into more mature markets now. Financing Flows 5. Standard Deviation in Equity/Firm Value 2. Book Value Multiples 3. Default Spreads 3.

Dividends

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

In this post, I will look at corporate profitability, in all its different dimensions, and how companies across the globe, and across industries, measured up in the most recent years. To make comparisons, profits are scaled to common metrics, with revenues and book value of investment being the most common scalar.

Start-ups

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 31, 2024

In this post, I start by looking at the end game for businesses, and how that choice plays out in investment rules for these businesses, and then examine how much businesses generated in profits in 2023, scaled to both revenues and invested capital. The End Game in Business If you start a business, what is your end game?

Equity

Brian DeChesare

JUNE 1, 2022

But over time, trends like market liberalization, deregulation, the shift to renewables, and the ESG religion “movement” have shaken up a sleepy sector. We’ll get into these fun developments, but I want to start with the basic definitions: Power & Utilities Investment Banking Defined.

Banking