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Data Update 1 for 2024: The data speaks, but what does it say?

Musings on Markets

The Variables As I mentioned at the start of this post, this entire exercise of collecting and analyzing data is a selfish one, insofar as I compute the data variables that I find useful when doing corporate financial analysis, valuation, or investment analysis. Profit Margins 1. Aggregate operating numbers 3.

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In Search of Safe Havens: The Trust Deficit and Risk-free Investments!

Musings on Markets

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. That is why the risk-free rate becomes an input into option pricing and forward pricing models , and its absence leaves a vacuum.

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Data Update 1 for 2021: A (Data) Look Back at a Most Forgettable Year (2020)!

Musings on Markets

That said, it does mean that any broad conclusions (about profitability and revenues) that emerge from my data apply to public companies, and it may be dangerous to extrapolate to private businesses, especially in a year like 2020 where private businesses could have been affected more adversely by COVID shutdowns than public companies.