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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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Loss Leader or Value Creator? Deconstructing Amazon Prime
I am an Amazon Prime member and have been one for a long time, and I am completely hooked. Not only do I (and my family) use Amazon Prime for items ranging from tissue paper to big screen televisions,...
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The Bitcoin Boom: Asset, Currency, Commodity or Collectible?
As I have noted with my earlier posts on crypto currencies, in general, and bitcoin, in particular, I find myself disagreeing with both its most virulent critics and its strongest proponents. Â Unlike...
View ArticleBitcoin Backlash: Back to the Drawing Board?
My last post on Bitcoin got me some push back and I am glad that it did. I would rather be read, and disagreed with, than not read at all. I have been told that I know very little about crypto...
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January 2018 Data Update 1: Numbers don't lie, or do they?
Every year, since 1992, I have spent the first week of my year, paying homage to the numbers gods. I collect raw accounting and market data from a variety of raw data providers, and I am grateful to...
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January 2017 Data Update 2: The Buoyancy of US Equities
If you were an investor in US stocks, 2017 was a very good year for you. Faced with a wall of macro economic and political worries, the US equity market proved more than up to the challenge and...
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January 2018 Data Update 3: Taxing Questions on Value
If you have read my prior posts on taxes, you already know my views on the US tax code, especially as it relates to corporate taxes. Without mincing words, the US corporate tax code, as it existed in...
View ArticleJanuary 2018 Data Update 4: The Currency Conundrum
There is perhaps no more mangled nor misunderstood part of financial analysis than the handling of currencies, and globalization has only made the problems worse. From the laziness of assuming that...
View ArticleJanuary 2018 Data Update 5: Country Risk Update
In my last post, I looked at the currency confusions that globalization has brought into financial analysis, and how to clean up for them. In this post, I discuss the other aspect of globalization...
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January 2018 Data Update 6: A Cost of Capital Primer
I have long described the cost of capital as the Swiss Army Knife of finance, since it shows up in so many places in finance, albeit in different forms. In corporate finance, it is not only the cost of...
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