Tuesday 13 April 2010

Computing Intrinsic Value

Individuals differ from one another in assessing companies' future prospects.  They also differ in their risk tolerance.  Hence, it should be no great leap to accept that there is no unique intrinsic value that can be assigned to a common stock upon which everyone will agree.  

In computing intrinsic value you should start by examining a company's balance sheet.  

  • Some assets, such as cash and investments in marketable securities, are reported at market value.  
  • As a first approximation, the intrinsic value of such items can be taken to be the same as their market values.  


For most companies, however, the major component of intrinsic value comes from their future earnings.
For valuation of future earnings:

  1. You can start with estimating a growth rate based on your evaluation of the company's past performance.  
  2. Then you can apply the estimated growth rate to current earnings to approximate expected earnings for a future year, say, 10 years from the current year.  
  3. Finally, apply a P/E multiple to the future earnings per share to estimate the value of those earnings in the future and discount them to their present value.
  4. In addition, dividends should be properly accounted for.
While it is a simple approach, it requires many assumptions.  For example, 
  • you may have to adjust reported earnings in an attempt to obtain underlying or sustainable earnings. 
  • You also need to assume a growth rate, a P/E multiple, and a discount rate.  
With this approach, it is important to know the company's business well for you to come up with reliable estimates.


Related posts:

Intrinsic value described by Ben Graham in Security Analysis.

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