Musings on Markets

JULY 17, 2023

Exacerbating the pain, corporate default spreads rose during the course of 2022: While default spreads rose across ratings classes, the rise was much more pronounced for the lowest ratings classes, part of a bigger story about risk capital that spilled across markets and asset classes.

Marketability 98

Marketability Risk Premium Start-ups Treasury 98

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Both accounting returns are computed based upon book value, not because we have suddenly developed trust in accounting, but because the objective is to estimate what investors have earned on what they originally invested in a company, rather than an updated or a marked-to market value.

Start-ups 52

Start-ups Equity Risk Premium Risk-free Rate 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

For example, I have seen it asserted that a stock that trades at less than book value is cheap or that a stock that trades at more than twenty times EBITDA is expensive. I do report on a few market-wide data items especially on risk premiums for both equity and debt. Equty Risk Premiums, by Country 4.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Dividends Start-ups EBITDA 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 80

Equity Book Value Start-ups Corporate Finance 80

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

Challenge rules of thumb and conventional wisdom : Investing has always had rules of thumb on how and when to invest, ranging from using historical PE or CAPE ratios to decide if markets are over valued, to simplistic rules (eg. buy stocks that trade at less than book value or trade at PEG ratios less than one) for individual stocks.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Market Capitalization Equity Start-ups 52

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

An Optimizing Tool In my second and third data posts for this year, I chronicled the effects of rising interest rates and risk premiums on costs of equity and capital. The market debt ratio, in contrast, uses the market's estimate of the value of equity, i.e., its market capitalization, as the value of equity.

Equity 52

Equity EBITDA Start-ups Net Debt 52

Musings on Markets

JULY 22, 2021

The second is the cost of capital, a number that most valuation classes and books (including mine) belabor to the point of diminishing returns. It is a money loser There are good arguments to be made against investing in Zomato at is proposed offering price, but one of the emptiest, and laziest, is that it is losing money right now.

Marketability 99

Marketability Start-ups Equity Price to Book 99