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. Stocks: The What? at the start of that year.

Equity 70

Equity Risk Premium Start-ups Dividends 70

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

In making these allocation or investment decisions, businesses have to make judgments on the minimum return that they would accept on an investment, given its risk, and that minimum return is referenced as the hurdle rate. What is a hurdle rate?

Risk-free Rate 52

Risk-free Rate Risk Premium Start-ups Equity 52

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. So, why bother?

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Market Capitalization Equity Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 17, 2024

Heading into 2023, US equities looked like they were heading into a sea of troubles, with inflation out of control and a recession on the horizon. Breaking equities down by sub-region, and looking across the globe, I computed the change in aggregate market capitalization, by region: While US stocks accounted for about $9.5

Risk Premium 77

Risk Premium Start-ups Equity Treasury 77

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 8, 2022

Happy New Year, and I hope that 2022 brings you good tidings! 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.

Risk Premium 91

Risk Premium Start-ups Market Capitalization Corporate Finance 91

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

That may reflect the concern that once a person or entity starts borrowing to fund its needs, it is easy to overuse debt, and risk its wellbeing in the process. To fund the business, you can either use borrowed money (debt) or owner's funds (equity), and while both are sources of capital, they represent different claims on the business.

Equity 52

Equity EBITDA Start-ups Net Debt 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 20, 2021

Investors are constantly in search of a single metric that will tell them whether a market is under or over valued, and consequently whether they should buying or selling holdings in that market. Does the price of risk have to be positive? The answer depends on whether human beings are risk averse or not.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Risk-free Rate Equity Dividends 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 12, 2021

Last week, was my data week, where I download and analyze data on all publicly traded companies, listed anywhere in the world, and I will post extensively on what the numbers look like after a most tumultuous year. As we approach the turn of the calendar year, I have my own set of rituals that prepare me for the new year. What I teach.

Corporate Finance 52

Corporate Finance Start-ups Finance Marketability 52

Musings on Markets

JULY 17, 2023

In my second data update post from the start of this year , I looked at US equities in 2022, with the S&P 500 down almost 20% during the year and the NASDAQ, overweighted in technology, feeling even more pain, down about a third, during the year. That pessimism was not restricted to market outlooks.

Marketability 95

Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 95

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

MAY 11, 2021

In my last post, I looked at the Biden Administration's proposal to increase corporate taxes, to provide funding for an infrastructure bill, and concluded that while there is room for raising corporate taxes, it would be more efficient and fairer to do so by reducing the tax credits and deductions in the code, than by raising the tax rate.

Dividends 52

Dividends Start-ups Risk Premium Treasury 52

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