Author: Level13

By: Level13 The CAP for the U.S. stock market, as a whole, is estimated to be between 10 and15 years. However, within that aggregate, individual company CAPs can vary from 0-2 years to over 20 years. As a general rule, companies with low multiples tend to have shorter CAPs. Alternatively, companies with high multiples typically have long CAPs. For example, companies like Microsoft and Coca-Cola have CAPs well in excess of 20 years, demonstrating their perceived market dominance, the sustainability of high returns, and the market’s willingness to take the long view. If a substantial percentage of the value...

By: Level13 Competitive advantage period (CAP) is the time during which a company is expected to generate returns on incremental investment that exceed its cost of capital. Economic theory suggests that competitive forces will drive returns down to the cost of capital over time. If a company earns above market required returns, it will attract competitors that will accept lower returns, eventually driving industry returns lower. The notion of CAP has been around for some time; nonetheless, not much attention has been paid to it in the valuation literature. The equation can be summarized as follows: Value = (NOPAT/WACC)...

By: Level13 In 1991, Barrie Wigmore, a Goldman Sachs limited partner, released a study that attempted to determine what factors drove the stock market’s above-average returns in the decade of the 1980s. After carefully accounting for earnings growth, interest rate declines, M&A activity and analysts’ rosy forecasts, it appeared a full 38% of the shareholder value created in the 1980s remained unexplained. Dubbed the “X” factor, this mysterious driver of value left Wigmore and the Wall Street Journal, which published a feature article on the study, at a loss. Given overwhelming evidence of well-functioning capital markets, it appears completely...

By: Level13 Economic Value Added (EVA) is a frequently used ratio by investors from developed market economies. The basic idea of this formula is based on the foundation that the main goal of a company is to maximize profit. However it does not mean book profit (the difference between revenues and costs) but economical profit. The difference between economical and book profit is that economical profit is the difference between revenues and economical costs, which are book costs and opportunity costs. Opportunity costs are presented by the amount of money lost by not putting available sources (like capital, labor,...