Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

In fact, almost every investment scam in history, from the South Sea Bubble to Bernie Madoff, has offered investors the alluring combination of great opportunities with no or low danger, and induced by sweet talk, but made blind by greed, thousands have fallen prey. Let me use two illustrations to bring this home.

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Hurdle Rate Currencies Investments Corporate Finance 90

CFO News Room

JANUARY 7, 2023

Data: Trickle to a Flood! It is perhaps a reflection of my age that I remember when getting data to do corporate financial analysis or valuation was a chore. That said, to use mean reversion in analysis or investing, you need to know what these averages are, either over time or across companies, and data can help in that pursuit. .

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Marketing Valuation Corporate Finance Financial Analysis 130

CFO News Room

JANUARY 18, 2023

Even though we live in an age where user platforms and hyper revenue growth can drive company valuations, that adage remains true. To make comparisons, profits are scaled to common metrics, with revenues and book value of investment being the most common scalar. Returns on Invested Capital (or Equity).

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Marketing Hurdle Rate Investments Accounting 130

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

In pursuit of an answer to that question, I used company-specific data from Value Line, one of the earliest entrants into the investment data business, to compute an industry average. In January 1993, I was valuing a retail company, and I found myself wondering what a reasonable margin was for a firm operating in the retail business.

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Valuation Financial Analysis Analyzing Data Profit and Loss 105

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Even though we live in an age where user platforms and hyper revenue growth can drive company valuations, that adage remains true. To make comparisons, profits are scaled to common metrics, with revenues and book value of investment being the most common scalar.

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Hurdle Rate Investments Accounting Entertainment 98

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 12, 2021

Thus, you and I can disagree about whether beta is a good measure of risk, but not on the principle that no matter what definition of risk you ultimately choose, riskier investments need higher hurdles than safer investments.

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Valuation Corporate Finance Finance Investments 52

Barry Ritholtz

MAY 9, 2023

He is the Chief Investment Officer of Asset and Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. He co-chairs a number of the asset management investment committees. I thought this was an absolutely fascinating way to see the world of investment management. Investment banks were not really a known concept in the area where I grew up.

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Investments Banking Advertising Numbers 119

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

It is perhaps a reflection of my age that I remember when getting data to do corporate financial analysis or valuation was a chore. Thus, without a sense of what comprises a high or low profit margin for a firm, or what the cost of capital is for the typical company, it is easy to create "fairy tale" valuations and analyses.

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Valuation Corporate Finance Financial Analysis Leverage 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

Put simply, I possess no exclusivity here, and staying consistent with my thesis, I don't expect to expect to make money by investing based upon this data. The first is that I do not have a macro focus, and my interests in macro variables occur only in the context of corporate finance or valuation issues. So, why bother?

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Valuation Currencies Numbers Corporate Finance 52

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 20, 2021

The Price of Risk The price of risk is what investors demand as a premium, an extra return over and above what they can make on a guaranteed investment (risk free), to invest in a risky asset. Intuitively, if you want to earn a higher risk premium on an investment, holding cash flows fixed, you will pay less for that investment today.

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Treasury Investments 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. You can imagine, you give a bearish message at a bullish investment conference, and no one listens to you.

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Valuation Finance Investments Banking 59

CFO News Room

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

” look at the Monte Carlo simulations, look at what is the hurdle rate. So, last year, valuations were high, interest rates were low. And I said, “Look, you’ve got to look at where we are with valuations, and you have to look at where the 10-year Treasury is at. Is it at 1.5%?

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Musings on Markets

JULY 25, 2023

To the extent that divide is not just descriptive, but also drives real world investment, both companies and investors may be misallocating their capital, and I will argue for finer delineations of risk. I have my reasons. I know that the currency choice is the source of angst for many analysts, and I think unnecessarily so.

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Currencies Hurdle Rate Valuation Marketing 52

Barry Ritholtz

MAY 21, 2024

She is one of the few people who combine quantitative investing with behavioral finance. No, I think that that’s the part of it that I find the most interesting is the idea that, you know, a stock price doesn’t really have a, you know, the fair value of an an investment instrument is somewhat arbitrary. Right, right.

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Finance Marketing Numbers Investments 59

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

I, if you are at all interested in concepts of things like portable alpha or return stacking, or just want to know how a quant looks at the world of investing and tries to decide where there are opportunities. Quantitative investing was, was that the plan from the beginning? Let’s talk a little bit about your background.

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Leverage Investments Marketing Math 59

Musings on Markets

JULY 24, 2024

Country Risk: Determinants At the risk of stating the obvious, investing and operating in some countries is much riskier than investing and operating in others, with variations in risk on multiple dimensions. Political Structure Would you rather invest/operate in a democracy than in an autocracy?

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