Synopses & Reviews
You buy financial assets for the cash flows you expect to gain. The price of a stock cannot be justified by assuming there will be other investors around who will pay a higher price in the future. That is the equivalent of playing an expensive game of musical chairs. As a prudent investor, you need to value the investment you are considering before buying it.
Valuation is at the heart of any investment decision, whether that decision is to buy, sell, or hold. In The Little Book of Valuation, financial expert Aswath Damodaran explains valuation techniques in everyday language so that even those new to investing can understand. Using this important resource, you can make better investment decisions when reviewing stock research reports and engaging in independent efforts to value and select stocks for your portfolio.
Page by page, Damodaran distills the fundamentals of valuation, without glossing over or ignoring key concepts, and develops models that you can easily understand and implement. He also makes the case that the two popular, and often divergent, approaches (intrinsic and relative) to valuation can be used in tandem. Damodaran discusses how both of these approaches can significantly improve your odds by helping you select stocks that are undervalued not only on an intrinsic level but also on a relative basis.
Once you become familiar with the techniques outlined in this book, you will be able to value a company with confidence. In addition, The Little Book of Valuation:
Includes illustrative case studies and examples that will help develop your valuation skills
Puts you in a better position to determine which investments are on track to add real value to your portfolio
Offers valuable valuation insights from one of the foremost experts in this field
Written with the individual investor in mind, this reliable guide will not only allow you to value a company quickly, but will also help you make sense of valuations done by others or found in comprehensive equity research reports.
Synopsis
One valuation book stands out as withstanding the test of time among investors and students of financial markets: Investment Valuation. That book discusses how best to value companies and securities. Damodaran's other books on valuation are directed primarily at analysts and practitioners, whose interests lie primarily in the practice of valuation. Consequently, they are filled with detail that are useful to trained financial analysts, but not to individual investors. The average investor has a less intense need for valuation details and is more interested in learning valuation basics that he or she can apply quickly to investments-and to fundamental research reports they read about companies. In the Little Book of Valuation, Prof. Aswath Damodaran will distil the fundamentals of valuation (without glossing over or ignoring key components) and develop models that investors can understand easily and use quickly (with relatively few inputs). In the process, he will aim to cover all of the different approaches - intrinsic or discounted cash flow valuation, multiples or relative valuation and even some elements of real option valuation. Readers will not only value a company quickly but will also be able to look at valuations done by others or equity research reports and discern whether they make sense. Damodaran will complement the book with iVal, an iPhone/iPad app that makes understanding stock valuations easy and intuitive.
Synopsis
An accessible, and intuitive, guide to stock valuationValuation is at the heart of any investment decision, whether that decision is to buy, sell, or hold. In The Little Book of Valuation, expert Aswath Damodaran explains the techniques in language that any investors can understand, so you can make better investment decisions when reviewing stock research reports and engaging in independent efforts to value and pick stocks.
Page by page, Damodaran distills the fundamentals of valuation, without glossing over or ignoring key concepts, and develops models that you can easily understand and use. Along the way, he covers various valuation approaches from intrinsic or discounted cash flow valuation and multiples or relative valuation to some elements of real option valuation.
- Includes case studies and examples that will help build your valuation skills
- Written by Aswath Damodaran, one of today's most respected valuation experts
- Includes an accompanying iPhone application (iVal) that makes the lessons of the book immediately useable
Written with the individual investor in mind, this reliable guide will not only help you value a company quickly, but will also help you make sense of valuations done by others or found in comprehensive equity research reports.
Synopsis
Praise for The Little Book of Valuation
"There is nothing 'little' about Damodaran's The Little Book of Valuation.The whole gamut of ideas that form the basis for all business valuationscovered in his many multi-hundred page classicsare all here, with the same rigor, clarity, pointedness, and wit."Professor Anant K. Sundaram
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College "The Little Book of Valuation is a great book that I will recommend to my students and friends. This book is an impressive synthesis of sound theory and best practice. It is completely accessible to the novice. It is also an important addition to the professional library of the finance specialist. Acquire it without hesitation."Pablo Fernandez, Professor of Finance IESE Business School, Spain "Damodaran's fast read book offers valuable insights for both institutional and sophisticated individual investors. Within the confines of 'intrinsic' (income approach) and 'relative' (market approach) analysis, he identifies the 'value drivers' in several broad categories of stocks and the most important factors to look for, and how to treat them in valuation for each category."Shannon PrattChairman and CEO, Shannon Pratt Valuations
About the Author
Aswath Damodaran is Professor of Finance at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding teaching, including the NYU university-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, and was named one of the nation's top business school teachers by BusinessWeek in 1994. He has written or coedited numerous books, including Damodaran on Valuation, Investment Valuation, Corporate Finance, Investment Management, Investment Philosophies, and Applied Corporate Finance (all published by Wiley), as well as The Dark Side of Valuation, Investment Fables, and Strategic Risk Taking.
Table of Contents
Foreword.
Introduction.
Hit the Ground Running —Valuation Basics.
Chapter One Value – More Than a Number!
Chapter Two Power Tools of the Trade.
Chapter Three Yes, Virginia, Every Asset has an Intrinsic Value.
Chapter Four It's all Relative!
From Cradle to Grave —Life Cycle and Valuation.
Chapter Five Promise Aplenty.
Chapter Six Growing Pains.
Chapter Seven Valuation Viagra.
Chapter Eight Doomsday.
Breaking the Mold —Special Situations in Valuation.
Chapter Nine Bank on It.
Chapter Ten Roller-Coaster Investing.
Chapter Eleven Invisible Value.
Conclusion Rules for the Road.