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.

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Valuation Corporate Finance Finance Investments 52

Barry Ritholtz

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

BUCKLEY: They were all institutional separate accounts. We’ve always been a virtual company, just used to be through the mail and 1-800 number when I joined. So that’s a number I hadn’t seen before. Number one, you put it back into the business. That means a low hurdle rate. RITHOLTZ: Wow.

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Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

What is a hurdle rate for a business? In this post, I will start by looking at the role that hurdle rates play in running a business, with the consequences of setting them too high or too low, and then look at the fundamentals that should cause hurdle rates to vary across companies. What is a hurdle rate?

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Hurdle Rate Currencies Investments Valuation 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 20, 2021

The failures of the signal have been variously attributed to low interest rates, accounting mis-measurement of earnings (especially at tech companies), and by some, to animal spirits. Data Update 4 for 2021: The Hurdle Rate Question. Data Update 2 for 2021: The Price of Risk!

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Treasury Investments Valuation Marketing 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.

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

The numbers that I computed opened my eyes to how much perspective on the high, low, and typical values, i.e., the distribution of margins, helped in valuing the company, and how little information there was available, at least at that time, on this dimension. Aggregate operating numbers 3. Insider, CEO & Institutional holdings 2.

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CFO News Room

JANUARY 7, 2023

Mean reversion : I am not a knee-jerk believer in mean reversion, but the tendency for numbers to move back towards averages is a strong one. 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.

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Musings on Markets

MARCH 8, 2023

The dividend principle, which is the focus of this post is built on a very simple principle, which is that if a company is unable to find investments that make returns that meet its hurdle rate thresholds, it should return cash back to the owners in that business.

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Hurdle Rate Corporate Finance Investments Finance 96

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

So, you’ll see that in this sort of what you might call a proto capitalistic society, interest is serving a number of different important functions. Well, the way I see negative rate is it’s a tax on capital, which is instituted by an unelected — RITHOLTZ: Central bank.

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

Mean reversion : I am not a knee-jerk believer in mean reversion, but the tendency for numbers to move back towards averages is a strong one. 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.

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Valuation Corporate Finance Financial Analysis Leverage 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

In closing, I also want to dispense with the notion that data is objective and that numbers-focused people have no bias. Finally, it is worth noting that, notwithstanding the travails of last year, the number of firms in the data universe increased from 44,394 firms at the start of 2020 to 46,579 firms, a 4.9%

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Valuation Currencies Numbers Corporate Finance 52

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Furthermore, do they optimize they debt ratios to deliver the lowest hurdle rates. Book versus Market : The book debt ratio is built around using the accounting measure of equity, usually shareholder's equity, as the value of equity. Do companies optimize financing mix?

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 28, 2024

In particular, there are wide variations in how risk is measured, and once measured, across companies and countries, and those variations can lead to differences in expected returns and hurdle rates, central to both corporate finance and investing judgments.

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Barry Ritholtz

MAY 21, 2024

So it’s got this math angle where it, you know, it’s all numbers, but then there’s this behavioral angle and psychological angle where, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a fun problem to tackle. It’s kind of a silly number, but people are going to think you’re smart or dumb based on that number.

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Musings on Markets

JULY 25, 2023

The graph below shows the sovereign CDS levels, by country: Source: Bloomberg ( July 2023 data ) There are three things to note, as you browse these numbers. That said, there is no intellectual firepower or research behind these numbers, since I am letting the default ratings agencies and risk measurement services carry that weight.

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Currencies Hurdle Rate Valuation Marketing 52

Barry Ritholtz

DECEMBER 26, 2023

And 00:06:38 [Speaker Changed] Door number one was much better than door number three in, in the circumstances. Accounting was very difficult. It’s about a 50% fail rate, something like that. When we talk about breadth, we’re talking about the numbers of advancers versus decliners. Maybe even more.

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Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

Honest back testing, really looking at the numbers versus exaggerating returns and, and making up the claim that something’s live when it’s not. 12, 14 even that not a lot of numbers. So you’ve got, you’ve got a modeling hurdle rate that you need to figure out when you’re adding diversifiers.

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