There are a couple of quantitative methods for analysing stocks, such as the Dividend Discount Model (DDM). A lot of people use them for stock analysis and investment as they are relatively simple to use and do not require qualitative analysis of the business strategies, competitive environment, corporate governance, etc. For a very long time, I was also a keen user of such methods, looking at only earnings, dividends, cashflows, debts, book value, etc. to identify value stocks. Such an approach has served me well in the past. However, there are times when this approach turned up value traps whose stock price keeps on declining. Over the past 2 years, I have gradually moved away from such quantitative analysis. Let us use the DDM as an example of the quantitative approach. A simple form of the DDM is: where P    = Intrinsic value of stock ......