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. As a result, treasury bond investors faced one of their worst years in history, losing close to a fifth of their principal, as bonds were repriced.

Treasury

Musings on Markets

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

The big story on Wednesday, September 18, was that the Federal Reserve’s open market committee finally got around to “cutting rates”, and doing so by more than expected. The market seemed to initially be disappointed in the action, dropping after the Fed’s announcement on Wednesday, but it did climb on Thursday.

Banking

Musings on Markets

JULY 13, 2022

I know that there are some of you, who distrust ratings agencies, arguing that they have regional and other biases and/or that they do not adjust ratings in a timely fashion. Country Risk: Equity Risk For equity investors, the price of risk is captured by the equity risk premium, and equity risk premiums will vary across countries.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

MAY 6, 2022

The nature of markets is that they are never quite settled, as investors recalibrate expectations constantly and reset prices. Clearly, we are not in one of those time periods, as markets approach bipolar territory, with big moves up and down.

Risk Premium

Musings on Markets

AUGUST 5, 2023

If you have been reading my posts, you know that I have an obsession with equity risk premiums, which I believe lie at the center of almost every substantive debate in markets and investing. The risk premium that you demand has different names in different markets.

Risk Premium

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

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. The Fed Effect: Where's the beef?

Treasury

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. Note that nothing that I have said so far is premised on modern portfolio theory, or any academic view of risk premiums.

Risk Premium

ThomsonReuters

MAY 6, 2021

Discounted cash flow approaches are also utilized within other functions of an organization, such as treasury, budgeting, financial planning and analysis, and tax planning. An entity may draw from its own experience as well as that of its peers, industry, geography, market, or other pertinent source.

Discounted Cash Flow

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. All of these measures, no matter how carefully designed, give a measure of inflation in the past, and markets are ultimately concerned more with inflation in the future.

Treasury

Brian DeChesare

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

and different teams specialize in different instruments (investment-grade, high-yield, distressed, structured, sovereign, emerging markets, etc. – The fixed income market dwarfs equities in terms of market value and trading volume, but that does not necessarily translate into “more jobs.” Treasury yield at?

Equity

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

As I have argued in all four of my posts, so far, about 2022, it was year when we saw a return to normalcy on many fronts, as treasury rates reverted back to pre-2008 levels, and risk capital discovered that risk has a downside.

Start-ups

Valutico

OCTOBER 20, 2022

The important figure there is r, which we’re using as the discount rate in this whole equation. But here, we use what interest we could get from an alternative investment in the market, called the Market Rate. This is the rate of return you’d get if you invested your money today instead. . Rf = Risk-free Rate.

Discounted Cash Flow

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 19, 2022

In a post at the start of 2021 , I argued that while stocks entered the year at elevated levels, especially on historic metrics (such as PE ratios), they were priced to deliver reasonable returns, relative to very low risk free rates (with the treasury bond rate at 0.93% at the start of 2021). The year that was.

Risk Premium

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. for 2021 and inflation of 2.2%

Equity

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

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

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 17, 2025

In my last post , I noted that the US has extended its dominance of global equities in recent years, increasing its share of market capitalization from 42% in at the start of 2023 to 44% at the start of 2024 to 49% at the start of 2025.

Equity

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 28, 2025

It was an interesting year for interest rates in the United States, one in which we got more evidence on the limited power that central banks have to alter the trajectory of market interest rates. We started 2024 with the consensus wisdom that rates would drop during the year, driven by expectations of rate cuts from the Fed.

Banking

Equidam

APRIL 22, 2025

S ection 3: What Influence Do Markets Have on Startup Valuation? Valuing startups relies heavily on assumptions about future performance, interpretations of market trends, and the specific perspectives and risk appetites of the involved parties. [3] This exploration will cover: Section 1: What is Startup Valuation?

Discounted Cash Flow

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

The Indian and Chinese markets cooled off in 2024, posting single digit gains in price appreciation. The Indian and Chinese markets cooled off in 2024, posting single digit gains in price appreciation. I converted all of the market capitalizations into US dollars , just to make them comparable.

Risk Premium