Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

Thus, looking at only the companies in the S&P 500 may give you more reliable data, with fewer missing observations, but your results will reflect what large market cap companies in any sector or industry do, rather than what is typical for that industry.

Dividends

Musings on Markets

AUGUST 15, 2023

After the rating downgrade, my mailbox was inundated with questions of what this action meant for investing, in general, and for corporate finance and valuation practice, in particular, and this post is my attempt to answer them all with one post. What is a risk free investment? Why does the risk-free rate matter?

Risk-free Rate

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 30, 2023

If 2022 was an unsettling year for equities, as I noted in my second data post, it was an even more tumultuous year for the bond market. The rise in rates transmitted to corporate bond market rates, with a concurrent rise in default spreads exacerbating the damage to investors. in 2022, higher than the 1- 1.5%

Treasury

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

Counter made-up numbers : It remains true that people (analysts, market experts, politicians) often make assertions based upon either incomplete or flawed data, or no data at all. Check rules of thumb : Investing and corporate finance are full of rules of thumb, many of long standing.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 12, 2021

Corporate Finance : Corporate finance is the development of the first financial principles that govern how to run a business. It is that mission that makes corporate finance the ultimate big picture class, one that everyone (entrepreneurs, investors, analysts, business observers) should take.

Corporate Finance

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 24, 2024

As we start 2024, the interest rate prognosticators who misread the bond markets so badly in 2023 are back to making their 2024 forecasts, and they show no evidence of having learned any lessons from the last year. Corporate Borrowing As riskfree rates fluctuate, they affect the rates at which private businesses can borrow money.

Treasury

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

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

Reynolds Holding

JULY 29, 2025

A fundamental question in corporate finance is how the flow of information affects the cost of raising capital. Investors tend to reward transparency because it helps them evaluate a firm’s risks and prospects, and they often accept lower returns when they feel well-informed. However, not all information is positive.

Equity

Appraiser Newsroom

JUNE 4, 2024

Everett is a finance professor at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. He is the Director of the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project (privatecap.org) and Executive Director for the Pepperdine Most Fundable Companies competition (pepperdine.edu/mfc). Dr. Everett He holds a Ph.D. She joined Chaffe & Associates, Inc.

Business Valuation

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 28, 2024

In my last data updates for this year, I looked first at how equity markets rebounded in 2023 , driven by a stronger-than-expected economy and inflation coming down, and then at how interest rates mirrored this rebound.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 8, 2022

To start the year, I returned to a ritual that I have practiced for thirty years, and that is to take a look at not just market changes over the last year, but also to get measures of the financial standing and practices of companies around the world. Happy New Year, and I hope that 2022 brings you good tidings!

Risk Premium

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

Musings on Markets

MAY 11, 2021

Encourage savings/ capital formation : In an economy, where private capital is behind the bulk of economic investment and growth, governments are dependent up the health of capital markets (stocks and bonds) for continued growth.

Dividends

Musings on Markets

JULY 24, 2024

After the 2008 market crisis, I resolved that I would be far more organized in my assessments and updating of equity risk premiums, in the United States and abroad, as I looked at the damage that can be inflicted on intrinsic value by significant shifts in risk premiums, i.e., my definition of a crisis.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 31, 2025

For those of you who have been tracking the market, the AI segment in the market has held its own since September, but even before the last weekend, there were signs that investors were sobering up on not only how big the payoff to AI would be, but how long they would have to wait to get there.

Start-ups

Reynolds Holding

MARCH 25, 2025

The 40 Acts Prior to the 1929 stock market crash, a budding asset management industry was taking shape smaller investors were invited to pool their assets with the assets of others, mostly in closed-end funds. [3] 17] Markets are built on trust. Then Ill turn to some observations about the state of affairs as I see them today.

Corporate Finance