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Data Update 6 for 2025: From Macro to Micro - The Hurdle Rate Question!

Musings on Markets

In the first five posts, I have looked at the macro numbers that drive global markets, from interest rates to risk premiums, but it is not my preferred habitat. 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.

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Data Update 4 for 2021: The Hurdle Rate Question!

Musings on Markets

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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Data Update 1 for 2025: The Draw (and Danger) of Data

Musings on Markets

Not surprisingly, the company listings are across the world, and I look at the breakdown of companies, by number and market cap, by geography: As you can see, the market cap of US companies at the start of 2025 accounted for roughly 49% of the market cap of global stocks, up from 44% at the start of 2024 and 42% at the start of 2023.

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Risk = Danger + Opportunity!

CFO News Room

Risk and Hurdle Rates In investing and corporate finance, we have no choice but to come up with measures of risk, flawed though they might be, that can be converted into numbers that drive decisions. Not surprisingly, both these forces play a role in how companies and investors set hurdle rates.

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Data Update 4 for 2022: Risk = Danger + Opportunity!

Musings on Markets

Risk and Hurdle Rates In investing and corporate finance, we have no choice but to come up with measures of risk, flawed though they might be, that can be converted into numbers that drive decisions. In corporate finance, this takes the form of a hurdle rate , a minimum acceptable return on an investment, for it to be funded.

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Data Update 7 for 2025: The End Game in Business!

Musings on Markets

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. Data Update 4 for 2025: Interest Rates, Inflation and Central Banks!

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Data Update 5 for 2024: Profitability - The End Game for Business?

Musings on Markets

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.