Great Writeup! I agree with the 3 metrics you look into when analyzing a business. The only other thing I look into is the management and their incentives. If the company is owner-operated and has a lot of skin in the game, management's incentives are heavily tied to share price. They tend to think more long-term than others.
To seed, build, and nurture timeless, intangible human capitals — such as resilience, trust, evolution, fulfilment, quality, peace, patience, discipline, relationships and conviction — in order to elevate human judgment, deepen relationships, and restore sacred trusteeship and stewardship of long-term firm value across generations.
A refreshing poetic take on our business world and capitalism.
A reflection on why today’s capital architectures—PE, VC, Hedge funds, SPAC, Alt funds, Rollups—mostly fail to build and nuture what time can trust.
Built to Be Left.
A quiet anatomy of extraction, abandonment, and the collapse of stewardship.
"Principal-Agent Risk is not a flaw in the system.
I am studying to write on Cash Flow from Operations and Free Cash Flow impact on companies n their growth, then this came.
It is a great article BUT scrolling further when I went thru your “why I sold Costco”, you are discussing the other rations like P/E etc for ur selling decision, which seems like a contradiction.
You can't not use valuation metrics. It's like telling people to decide what car to buy based on mileage, reliability and comfort, without even looking at the price tag.
While Buffett and Lynch will certainly have (or had, in Lynch's case) simple rules that they stick to in investing, suggesting they just look at like 3 metrics and make their decisions like that is super misleading.
Nice story and good work. The three metrics you want to know are actually cash return on capital and the re-investment rate (potential) and by implication the incremental return on capital. Think of this as decoupling your dcf into the value of existing assets and new assets (not yet built).
Then you need to understand the business model and its stage in the life cycle. This is why tracking gross margins matters. In today’s software firms look at operating profits to gross profits ratio. Helps you see the terminal target.
The metric nobody spends enough time thinking about is fade. That is because it is hard and in the future. Best approach is to reverse engineer the implied fade to the current share price. Ie 10% per annum reduction in you terminal return on capital. Note that 1/f is the competitive advantage period.
Remember to monitor your factor bias and the elastic band that will be your investment or career risk.
You can also manipulate ROIC numbers, just as you do with P/E and EPS, and it doesn't need to be intentional. In Microsoft's case, you might consider the salaries of engineers and even salespeople as CapEx, since they're creating products and business relationships from which Microsoft benefits for years.
Excellent article
In addition Management buying OR selling, opportunity size of the industry and Revenue growth are other factors.
Regular dividend paying is also a metric.
Great Writeup! I agree with the 3 metrics you look into when analyzing a business. The only other thing I look into is the management and their incentives. If the company is owner-operated and has a lot of skin in the game, management's incentives are heavily tied to share price. They tend to think more long-term than others.
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To seed, build, and nurture timeless, intangible human capitals — such as resilience, trust, evolution, fulfilment, quality, peace, patience, discipline, relationships and conviction — in order to elevate human judgment, deepen relationships, and restore sacred trusteeship and stewardship of long-term firm value across generations.
A refreshing poetic take on our business world and capitalism.
A reflection on why today’s capital architectures—PE, VC, Hedge funds, SPAC, Alt funds, Rollups—mostly fail to build and nuture what time can trust.
Built to Be Left.
A quiet anatomy of extraction, abandonment, and the collapse of stewardship.
"Principal-Agent Risk is not a flaw in the system.
It is the system’s operating principle”
Experience first. Return if it speaks to you.
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I am studying to write on Cash Flow from Operations and Free Cash Flow impact on companies n their growth, then this came.
It is a great article BUT scrolling further when I went thru your “why I sold Costco”, you are discussing the other rations like P/E etc for ur selling decision, which seems like a contradiction.
Anyhow wonderful collection otherwise~~
You can't not use valuation metrics. It's like telling people to decide what car to buy based on mileage, reliability and comfort, without even looking at the price tag.
While Buffett and Lynch will certainly have (or had, in Lynch's case) simple rules that they stick to in investing, suggesting they just look at like 3 metrics and make their decisions like that is super misleading.
Nice story and good work. The three metrics you want to know are actually cash return on capital and the re-investment rate (potential) and by implication the incremental return on capital. Think of this as decoupling your dcf into the value of existing assets and new assets (not yet built).
Then you need to understand the business model and its stage in the life cycle. This is why tracking gross margins matters. In today’s software firms look at operating profits to gross profits ratio. Helps you see the terminal target.
The metric nobody spends enough time thinking about is fade. That is because it is hard and in the future. Best approach is to reverse engineer the implied fade to the current share price. Ie 10% per annum reduction in you terminal return on capital. Note that 1/f is the competitive advantage period.
Remember to monitor your factor bias and the elastic band that will be your investment or career risk.
Good luck out there.
You can also manipulate ROIC numbers, just as you do with P/E and EPS, and it doesn't need to be intentional. In Microsoft's case, you might consider the salaries of engineers and even salespeople as CapEx, since they're creating products and business relationships from which Microsoft benefits for years.
Agree, but there is only one important thing - WACC, which must be higher than ROIC. Only in this case a company generates money on its investments.
Other way round.
Moreover, WACC relies on CAPM, which relies on beta, which relies on the assumption, risk = volatility, which is nonsense.
Fantastic post. Super helpful. Restacking.