Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

I am in the third week of the corporate finance class that I teach at NYU Stern, and my students have been lulled into a false sense of complacency about what's coming, since I have not used a single metric or number in my class yet. As you move from down the income statement , the percentage of firms that report negative earnings decreases.

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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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Barry Ritholtz

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

The current convergence involved some research I was doing centered on Dunning Kruger, Vanguard’s Tim Buckley, my partner Josh’s AI/ChatGPT post, and the general state of the market. Whenever a truly new and innovative technology comes along, there are a tiny number of people who have actual expertise in the space.

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Musings on Markets

MARCH 5, 2025

After reporting on the total cash returned during the year, by public companies, in the form of dividends and buybacks, I scale the cash returned to earnings (payout ratios) and to market cap (yield) and present the cross sectional distribution of both statistics across global companies.

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Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Measuring Profitability The question of whether a company is making or losing money should be a simple one to answer, especially in an age where accounting statements are governed by a myriad of rules, and a legion of number-crunchers follow these rules to report profits generated by a firm. The numbers yield interesting insights.

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Global Finance

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

It also boosts adaptability and maintains stability in challenging markets. According to a report published by market research and consulting firm IMARC Group, the global SCF market reached $7.5 According to a report published by market research and consulting firm IMARC Group, the global SCF market reached $7.5

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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.

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Musings on Markets

AUGUST 19, 2024

The second is to look at the industry group or sector that a company is in, and then follow up by classifying that industry group or sector into high or low growth; for the last four decades, in US equity markets, tech has been viewed as growth and utilities as mature.

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Musings on Markets

AUGUST 15, 2023

As the risk-free rate rises, expected returns on equities will be pushed up, and holding all else constant, stock prices will go down., and the reverse will occur, when risk-free rates drop. In a reflection of the times, there have been two developments.

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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 102

Barry Ritholtz

MAY 9, 2023

He co-chairs a number of the asset management investment committees. So I interviewed with a bunch of banks, got a number of job offers by the end of the week, and joined Goldman Sachs in October 1998. I ended up being hired onto the high yield desk as a research analyst and did that for a number of years, a couple of years.

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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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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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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 9, 2021

I spent the first week of 2021 in the same way that I have spent the first week of every year since 1995, collecting data on publicly traded companies and analyzing how they navigated the cross currents of the prior year, both in operating and market value terms.

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Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Starting with gross margins, and computing the number for all non-financial service firms, we report the distribution of gross margins across publicly traded companies at the start of 2023, again based upon gross income and sales in the most recent twelve months: While the median gross margin across all publicly traded global firms is about 30%.,

Profit and Loss 52

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CFO News Room

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

directly via email: Resources Featured In This Episode: Looking for sample client service calendars, marketing plans, and more? And we’re going to talk about what’s going on in the markets, briefly talk about the portfolio. ” look at the Monte Carlo simulations, look at what is the hurdle rate.

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 27, 2021

As stock and bond markets went through these gyrations, it should come as no surprise that the same forces were playing out in other markets as well. Commodities With that lengthly lead in, let's look at what 2020 brought as surprises to the commodity market. against developed market currencies.

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Barry Ritholtz

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

And I love business, I love the markets, I want to go there. What sort of challenges — BUCKLEY: A couple of bear markets. BUCKLEY: We’ve had, let’s see, inflation at a 40-year high, tightest labor market of our lifetimes. We were losing market share in the critical retirement, the 401(k) business.

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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. Risk premiums can and will change over time : Risk premiums are driven by risk aversion, and risk aversion itself can change over time.

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Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Note that this framework applies for all businesses, from the smallest, privately owned businesses, where debt takes the form of bank loans and even credit card borrowing and equity is owner savings, the largest publicly traded companies, where debt can be in the form of corporate bonds and equity is shares held by public market investors.

Corporate Finance 52

Corporate Finance Finance Marketing Banking 52

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

CHANCELLOR: And look — yeah, but then if you look at the valuation of the market at that time, the market was — the U.S. CHANCELLOR: And look — yeah, but then if you look at the valuation of the market at that time, the market was — the U.S. RITHOLTZ: That’s how you know it’s going to be low?

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Musings on Markets

JANUARY 28, 2024

In my last data updates for this year, I looked first at how equity markets rebounded in 2023 , driven by a stronger-than-expected economy and inflation coming down, and then at how interest rates mirrored this rebound.

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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.

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Currencies Hurdle Rate Valuation Marketing 52

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

The cost of debt is lower than the cost of equity : If you review my sixth data update on hurdle rates , and go through my cost of capital calculation, there is one inescapable conclusion. At every level of debt, the cost of equity is generally much higher than the cost of debt for a simple reason.

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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.

Finance 59

Finance Marketing Numbers Investments 59

Barry Ritholtz

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

He, he does some really, really interesting research and gets deep into the weeds on things like market structure, liquidity cascades, what really drives returns, how much should you be focused on alpha versus beta. And I, and I really like the application of math and statistics and computer science to markets. It’s just a model.

Leverage 59

Leverage Investments Marketing Math 59

Barry Ritholtz

DECEMBER 26, 2023

You work at Capital Growth Financial and in former global markets before you join investing Giant Merrill Lynch in 2007, what was that transition like from smaller shops to a really, really big one? And 00:06:38 [Speaker Changed] Door number one was much better than door number three in, in the circumstances. That’s right.

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Musings on Markets

JULY 24, 2024

After the 2008 market crisis, I resolved that I would be far more organized in my assessments and updating of equity risk premiums, in the United States and abroad, as I looked at the damage that can be inflicted on intrinsic value by significant shifts in risk premiums, i.e., my definition of a crisis.

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