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Data Update 4 for 2021: The Hurdle Rate Question!

Musings on Markets

What is a hurdle rate for a business? There are multiple definitions that you will see offered, from it being the cost of raising capital for that business to an opportunity cost , i.e., a return that you can make investing elsewhere, to a required return for investors in that business. What is a hurdle rate?

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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.

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Data Update 5 for 2023: The Earnings Test

Musings on Markets

Starting with gross margins, and computing the number for all non-financial service firms, we report the distribution of gross margins across publicly traded companies at the start of 2023, again based upon gross income and sales in the most recent twelve months: While the median gross margin across all publicly traded global firms is about 30%.,

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Corporate Banks Need Radical Tech Shift, Say Analysts

PYMNTS

The weakest performers fell below the returns hurdle rate across regions and across segments, the report noted. “To stay viable, they need to understand the client journeys that matter most, invest in continual client-centric innovation, adopt agile ways of working and create more effective and collaborative sales cultures.”

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Data Update 3 for 2021: Currencies, Commodities, Collectibles and Cryptos

Musings on Markets

In this post, I will take a look at these other markets, starting with a way of dividing investments into assets, commodities, currencies and collectibles that I find useful in thinking about what I can (and cannot) do in those markets, and then reviewing how these markets performed during 2020.

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

Musings on Markets

Put simply, I possess no exclusivity here, and staying consistent with my thesis, I don't expect to expect to make money by investing based upon this data. So, why bother? You would like those answers now, but stay tuned to the rest of my data updates and the data will speak for itself.)

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

Musings on Markets

In pursuit of an answer to that question, I used company-specific data from Value Line, one of the earliest entrants into the investment data business, to compute an industry average. Return on (invested) capital 2. Ratings & Spreads 2. Ratings & Spreads 2. Tax rates 4. Excess Returns on investments 4.