Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

I spend most of my time in the far less rarefied air of corporate finance and valuation, where businesses try to decide what projects to invest in, and investors attempt to estimate business value. A key tool in both endeavors is a hurdle rate a rate of return that you determine as your required return for business and investment decisions.

Hurdle Rate 72

Hurdle Rate Valuation Corporate Finance Currencies 72

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 10, 2025

For the segment of my data that is macroeconomic, my primary source is FRED, the data set maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank , but I supplement with other data that I found online, including NAIC for bond spread data and Political Risk Services (PRS) for country risk scores. Insider, CEO & Institutional holdings 2. Beta & Risk 1.

Corporate Finance 119

Corporate Finance Valuation Finance Numbers 119

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

In this post, I will focus on how companies around the world, and in different sectors, performed on their end game of delivering profits, by first focusing on profitability differences across businesses, then converting profitability into returns, and comparing these returns to the hurdle rates that I talked about in my last data update post.

Hurdle Rate 72

Hurdle Rate Accounting Investments Economics 72

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. and the reverse will occur, when risk-free rates drop.

Investments 98

Investments Currencies Treasury Hurdle Rate 98

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

To illustrate, consider a practice in valuation, where analysts are trained to add a small cap premium to discount rates for smaller companies, on the intuition that they are riskier than larger companies. Data Update 4 for 2021: The Hurdle Rate Question. Data Update 2 for 2021: The Price of Risk!

Valuation 52

Valuation Currencies Numbers Corporate Finance 52

Musings on Markets

JULY 25, 2023

There are many services, including the World Bank and the Economist, who offer comprehensive country risk scores, and the map below includes composite country risk scores from Political Risk Services in June 2023: The pluses and minuses of comprehensive risk scores are visible in this table.

Currencies 52

Currencies Hurdle Rate Valuation Marketing 52

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

His latest book could not be more timely, “The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest,” it’s all about the history of interest rates, money lending, investing speculation, funded by banks and loans and credit. And Jeremy said, “Well, at least there’s enough structural redundancy in the banking system.”

Valuation 59

Valuation Finance Investments Banking 59