Clik here to view.
Alibaba's coming out party: Valued right, but is it priced right?
As Alibaba's IPO approaches and the road show kicks into high gear, questions about its accounting, value and corporate governance that came up at the time of the filing of its initial prospectus on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alibaba's Governance by Politburo: Corporate Governance and Value
In my last post on Alibaba, I valued the company at about $162 billion but also argued that investors considering investing in the company might hold back because of corporate governance concerns. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stock Buybacks: They are big, they are back and they scare some people!
This has been a big year for stock buybacks, continuing a return to a trend that started more than two decades ago and was broken only briefly by the crisis in 2008. Focusing just on the S&P 500...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Walking Dead: Blackberry, Yahoo and the Zombie Apocalypse!
I will start with a confession. I have distinctly lowbrow tastes when it comes to literature, movies and entertainment. I would much rather read a novel about a unhinged serial killer than one written...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Go Pro: Camera or Smartphone? Social Media or Electronics? Price or Value?
My sixteen-year old, a sophomore in high school, joined the investment club at school a couple of weeks ago, and entered a stock-picking competition. Club members invest in a stock or stocks of their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
HP's Break Up : Value Enhancement, Pricing Game or Management Hype?
In my post on corporate breakups, I looked at the value and price consequences of breakups. Since that post was triggered by the news stories about HP and eBay splitting themselves, I though it would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Focus Pocus: Is breaking up a cure for corporate attention deficit disorder?
I could start this post by telling you that some of my best friends are corporate strategists, but I would be lying. I do have a few strategists as acquaintances, but perhaps not after this post. In my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Twitter's Bar Mitzvah! Is Social Media coming of age?
Life's transitions, from single to married, from renter to homeowner, and from employed to retired, just to name a few, are never easy, since the rules change, as do the measures of success and failure...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Go where it is darkest: When company, country, currency and commodity risk...
You learn valuation (and find out how much you don't know) by valuing businesses and companies, not by talking, reading or ruminating about doing valuation. That said, it is natural to want to value...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Up, up and away! A crowd-valuation of Uber!
In June 2014, I tried to value Uber and arrived at an estimated value for the firm of $6 billion, an impressive number for a young firm, but well below the VC estimates of value of $17-$18 billion at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An ERP Retrospective: Looking back (2014) and Looking forward (2015)
Mod Note: This was originally posted on 1/2/15 on his blog "Musings on Markets"At the beginning of 2014, the expectation was that government bond rates that had been kept low, at least according to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The X Factor in Value: Excess Returns in Theory and Practice
Mod Note (Andy): This was originally posted on 1/17/15 on his blogThere are lots of reasons why we try to start and run businesses. Some of them are emotional but the financial rationale for starting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Discounted Cashflow Valuations (DCF): Academic Exercise, Sales Pitch or...
In my last post, I noted that I will be teaching my valuation class, starting tomorrow (February 2, 2015). While the class looks at the whole range of valuation approaches, it is built around intrinsic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How low can you go? Doing the Petrobras Limbo!
A few months ago, I suggested that investors venture where it is darkest, the nether regions of the corporate world where country risk, commodity risk and company risk all collide to create investing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DCF Myth 1: If you have a D(discount rate) and a CF (cash flow), you have a DCF!
Earlier this year, I started my series on discounted cash flow valuations (DCF) with a post that listed ten common myths in DCF and promised to do a post on each one over the course of the year. This...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Aging of the Tech Sector: The Pricing Divergence of Young and Old Tech...
As the NASDAQ approaches historic highs, Apple’s market cap exceeds that of the Bovespa (the Brazilian equity index) and young social media companies like Snapchat have nosebleed valuations, there is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Illiquidity and Bubbles in Private Share Markets: Testing Mark Cuban's thesis!
It looks like Alibaba is investing $200 million in Snapchat, translating (at least according to deal watchers) into a value of $15 billion for Snapchat, a mind-boggling number for a company that has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The GM Buyback: Beyond the Hysteria!
Here is a script for a movie about the evils of stock buybacks, with the following players. The victim is an well-managed company in a business with significant growth opportunities and profit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dealing with Low Interest rates: Investing and Corporate Finance Lessons
A few months ago, I tagged along with my wife and daughter as they went on a tour of the Federal Reserve Building in downtown New York. While the highlight of the tour is that you get to see large...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is your CEO worth his (her) pay? The Pricing and Valuing of Top Managers!
It is the time of the year when stories about CEO compensation are the news of the day, and investors and onlookers alike get to ask whether a CEO can really be worth tens or even hundreds of millions...
View Article