I am glad you enjoyed the video Mike. I'll try to occasionally share short videos like this one that are useful for valuation. If there are certain topics that you think are relevant and you'd like to hear about, please do let me know.
@@kostadin_ristovski I would be interested in better understanding or figuring out 'boundaries' and also the process of expanding one's circle of competence ... there is so much to learn and not enough time I feel.
Hey Mike, I do share the same feeling, there's always more to learn and there's never enough time. But this is good! It is way better than having time and being deluded that you know everything. There's a famous quote by Socrates "The man who is truly wise knows that he knows very little" :) Hence, you are very wise Mike!
My problem with WACC is that it uses beta to measure the riskiness of a business, and I don’t think it’s a good measure for that. Beta shows the stock’s past price correlation to the market, and I don’t think that has very much to do with how risky a business it is. You just recently looked at Twitter, and saw that it had a quite low beta. But I definitely would not think of Twitter as a safe company. I can think of many companies with higher beta that I would regard as safer. I don’t think there’s any number you can look at to determine the riskiness of a business. You have to judge that subjectively, based on your knowledge of the nature of the industry and the degree of certainty and clarity you feel you have about predicting the company’s future. So to me, it makes sense to have some subjectivity in determining your discount rate.
Thanks for the comment. I agree, WACC isn't perfect and beta isn't a perfect measure of the risk, but it is an attempt to measure it. Absolutely, using subjective judgement is possible, but if you have a less-risky company in mind and the share price is all over the place, then the market disagrees with your judgement. The beta is an attempt to measure the risk through the eyes of the market. Using a subjective rate is definitely possible and there's nothing wrong with that, the only part I wanted to point out is not to refer to the outcome as "the value of the business". In my view, there are 3 ways to adjust for your subjective views and add margin of safety: 1. The first one is to be conservative when estimating the free cash flow - Whether that means forecasting lower revenue growth or lower margins or higher expected reinvestments. 2. The second one is by using a higher discount rate. 3. The last one is to not do anything related to point 1 or 2, but ask for a discount compared to the outcome of the model.
Thank you Kostadin, this is a topic I need to read up on more.
I am glad you enjoyed the video Mike. I'll try to occasionally share short videos like this one that are useful for valuation. If there are certain topics that you think are relevant and you'd like to hear about, please do let me know.
@@kostadin_ristovski I would be interested in better understanding or figuring out 'boundaries' and also the process of expanding one's circle of competence
... there is so much to learn and not enough time I feel.
Hey Mike, I do share the same feeling, there's always more to learn and there's never enough time. But this is good! It is way better than having time and being deluded that you know everything. There's a famous quote by Socrates "The man who is truly wise knows that he knows very little" :)
Hence, you are very wise Mike!
@@kostadin_ristovski I wish I was wise. Hopefully will get wiser with each passing year.
Excellent explanation of the differences! TY
It is my pleasure!
Excellent video. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it Kenneth!
My problem with WACC is that it uses beta to measure the riskiness of a business, and I don’t think it’s a good measure for that. Beta shows the stock’s past price correlation to the market, and I don’t think that has very much to do with how risky a business it is.
You just recently looked at Twitter, and saw that it had a quite low beta. But I definitely would not think of Twitter as a safe company. I can think of many companies with higher beta that I would regard as safer.
I don’t think there’s any number you can look at to determine the riskiness of a business. You have to judge that subjectively, based on your knowledge of the nature of the industry and the degree of certainty and clarity you feel you have about predicting the company’s future.
So to me, it makes sense to have some subjectivity in determining your discount rate.
Thanks for the comment. I agree, WACC isn't perfect and beta isn't a perfect measure of the risk, but it is an attempt to measure it. Absolutely, using subjective judgement is possible, but if you have a less-risky company in mind and the share price is all over the place, then the market disagrees with your judgement. The beta is an attempt to measure the risk through the eyes of the market.
Using a subjective rate is definitely possible and there's nothing wrong with that, the only part I wanted to point out is not to refer to the outcome as "the value of the business".
In my view, there are 3 ways to adjust for your subjective views and add margin of safety:
1. The first one is to be conservative when estimating the free cash flow - Whether that means forecasting lower revenue growth or lower margins or higher expected reinvestments.
2. The second one is by using a higher discount rate.
3. The last one is to not do anything related to point 1 or 2, but ask for a discount compared to the outcome of the model.
Interesting Video 👍
Thanks Elmar!
this helped a lot!!
Great video. Any chance you can show us how to calculate WACC on a future video? Thanks
I could definitely make a short video regarding WACC.
Great video
Thank you!