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January 2017 Data Update 4: Country Risk Update
In my last post, I pointed to currency confusion as one of the side effects of globalization. In this one, I will argue that as companies and investors globalize, Â investors and analysts have no choice...
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January 2017 Data Update 5: A Taxing Year Ahead?
There are three realities that you cannot avoid in business and investing. The first is that your returns and value are based upon the cash flows you have left over after you pay taxes. The second is...
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January 2017 Data Update 6: A Cost of Capital Update!
I have described the cost of capital as the Swiss Army knife of finance, a number that shows up in so many different places in corporate financial and analysis and valuation and in so many different...
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January 2017 Data Update 7: Profitability, Excess Returns and Governance
If asked to describe a successful business, most people will tell you that it is one that makes money and that is not an unreasonable starting point, but it is not a good ending point. For a business...
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January 2017 Data Update 8: The Dark and Light Sides of Debt
There is no aspect of corporate finance where morality plays a bigger role than  the decision of how much to borrow. That should come as no surprise. For generations, almost every religion has...
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January 2017 Data Update 9: Dividends and Buybacks
If you are from my generation, I am sure that you remember Rodney Dangerfield, whose comedy routine was built around the fact that "he got no respect". This post is about dividends and cash return, the...
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Apple: The Greatest Cash Machine in History?
As as sports fan, watching Brady and Belichick win the Super Bowl, Roger Federer triumph at the Australian Open and LeBron James carry the Cleveland Cavaliers to victory over the Warriors, it struck me...
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My Snap Story: Valuing Snap ahead of it's IPO!
Five years ago, when my daughter asked me whether I had Snapchat installed on my phone, my response was “Snapwhat?". In the weeks following, she managed to convince the rest of us in the family to...
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Explaining a Paradox: Why Good (Bad) Companies can be Bad (Good) Investments!
In nine posts, stretched out over almost two months, I have tried to describe how companies around the world make investments, finance them and decide how much cash to return to shareholders. Along the...
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January 2017 Data Update 10: The Pricing Game!
It's taken me a while to get here, but in this, the last of my ten posts looking at publicly traded companies globally, I look at pricing differences across regions and sectors. I laid out my rationale...
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A Valeant Update: Damaged Goods or Deeply Discount Drug Company?
Rats get a bad rap for fleeing sinking ships. After all, given that survival is the strongest evolutionary impulse and that rats are not high up in the food chain, why would they not? That idiom,...
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A Tale of Two Markets: Politics and Investing!
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,...
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Uber's bad week: Doomsday Scenario or Business Reset?
Uber just cannot seem to help itself, finding a way to get in the news, and often in ways that leave its image in tatters. You could see this pattern in full display last week, where Travis Kalanick,...
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User/Subscriber Economics: An Alternative View of Uber's Value
In the week since I posted my Uber valuation, I have received many suggestions on what I should have done differently in the valuation, with many of you arguing that I was being a over optimistic in my...
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User/Subscriber Economics: Value Dynamics
In my last post, I tried valuing Uber by estimating how much an existing user was worth to the company and then using that number to extrapolate to the value of all existing users and the value added...
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The Dark Side of Globalization: An Update on Country Risk!
The inexorable push towards globalization has stalled in the last few years, but the change it has created is irreversible. The largest companies in the world are multinationals, deriving large...
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Online Teaching: Promise, Pitfalls and Potential!
I am a teacher. That is how I describe myself to anyone who chooses to ask me what I do for a living. I am not a professor (sounds pedantic and pompous), definitely not an academic (how boring is...
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The Crypto Currency Debate: Future of Money or Speculative Hype?
When it comes to any finance-related questions, I am fair game, and those questions usually span the spectrum, from what I think about Warren Buffett (or why I don't agree with everything he says) to...
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A Tesla 2017 Update: A Disruptive Force with a Debt Problem!
These are certainly exciting times for Tesla. The first production version of the Tesla 3 was unveiled on July 28, with few surprises on the details and plenty of good reviews. Elon Musk was his usual...
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Tax Reform, 2017: Promise of Plenty or Poisoned Chalice?
Every decade or two, the political class in the United States wakes up to the reality that the US tax code, as written, is an abomination that encourages and rewards bad behavior, and works on a tax...
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