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nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
my thread for all corporate finance and academic finance related stuff

today at work we talked about how one would value and sell equity in a person

8-D / :O
lucas's avatar
15 years ago
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lucas
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http://www.wingedleopard.net/wlwlv2/index.php?comment=143
nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
quick jot of my thoughts today after a some after-work pints, sorry about structure

here was my proposal:

each individual can be viewed as an asset, one that will produce cash flows over their living existence. corporations are viewed in this way. technically speaking, the cash flows we would be concerned with are those that are available to the owners of the individual (this will become clearer later). so once you cover your living expenses, pay down debt, invest, etc, what is left is your personal free cash flow (FCF).

like corporations, people have capital structures (credit cards, mortgages as debt, possessions as assets - it seems that most people are highly levered but this is just an observation). i haven't worked out the specifics yet, but there are many ways to compute the cost of capital and therefore the discount rate for the FCFs.

the FCFs of the individual are estimated, and discounted by an appropriate factor given their immediacy. the sum of these discounted cash flows is the net present value (NPV) of the individual. however, as mentioned previously, the person has both liabilities and assets. since the liabilityholders have a certain claim on the individual, the total liabilities must be subtracted from the given NPV. this gives us the theoretical value of the individual's equity. the underwriter/issuing bank of the person's equity would likely start bidding near this value, in order to maximize the cash for the person selling their equity.

from there, we can consider more practical things. why would one want to sell their equity? one example that instantly sprang to mind is if they could not afford college/university and were accepted to a good school, one might endeavour to sell their personal equity. this is perhaps overly simplistic, but in any situation where someone needs personal liquidity (buying a car, a house?) they could raise capital with this method without taking on debt. in essence, giving people the same capital access that corporations have. if they have shares outstanding, they could use a rights issuance to raise more money.

in my mind, it is sort of like a loan that does not guarantee any return (for the buyer), but can giver the buyer more flexibility in terms of voting rights, claim on residual assets, and dividends. theoretically a person could sell themselves off entirely and have no voting rights, e.g. be legally bound to follow the command of their equityholders. but here are many ways in which the person could retain control over their life, for instance by only selling a minority stake or selling non-voting rights.

the person could buy out their equityholders if they came to mutual agreement. however it is likely that these securities would be rather illiquid and held by a few institutions or people... unless we packaged them up, assigned them ratings, and sold them off. bahahaha.

dirty? very much so.
lucas's avatar
15 years ago
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lucas
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but i look forward to reading this when i have time! (i have a meeting in five minutes, then i'm busy all night.)
nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
as an econ dude you'll be familiar with the concepts.
bluet's avatar
15 years ago
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bluet
:s
nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
icelandic banks are so hot right now

i wanna work for one
lucas's avatar
15 years ago
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lucas
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finally read this. estimating the future stream of cash flows for an individual seems extremely difficult.

there are also inherent principal-agent problems here. :)

kinda cool to think about, i guess. but i think microfinance makes more sense.
nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
well it's the same in equity financing for corps. one bank values the corp to sell it, other banks value it for other investors. everyone tries to maximize their return.
lucas's avatar
15 years ago
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lucas
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yeah, okay.
nny's avatar
15 years ago
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nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
money is the devil.
nestor's avatar
15 years ago
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nestor
nestor
pshaw
DaGr8Gatzby's avatar
15 years ago
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DaGr8Gatzby
Drunk by Myself
I love $$$, I love bitches, I love life.
lucas's avatar
11 years ago
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lucas
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question: google finance charts are in percent for me. know how to change it to price?
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
Can you email me a screenshot?
lucas's avatar
11 years ago
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lucas
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sure.

--

i have a good amount of money tied up in bonds--TIPS and investment-grade corporate debt. i'm glad that these are doing better recently, because i'm looking to slowly liquidate.

equity looks like it's been doing pretty well lately, too.

what gives?
DaGr8Gatzby's avatar
11 years ago
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DaGr8Gatzby
Drunk by Myself
^ my charts are in both percent and price. weird.
lucas's avatar
11 years ago
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lucas
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apparently it's because i had two securities on one chart
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
i am not happy about equity valuations. it's getting scary out there. lots of really marginal stuff coming to market too - not just in IPOs and follow-on offerings but also on the debt side with junk super frothy.
lucas's avatar
11 years ago
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lucas
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what if that's the future? i've been thinking about real growth opportunities lately. what if we've already gotten all the low hanging fruit, and all that is left is scraps?

maybe that's a good research idea for my dissertation.
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
i agree that in north america / western europe there may be limited gains to productivity and thus growth drivers will resort to demographics (which are unfavourable in many instances... except healthcare).

over and above that, corporate net profit margins are well above trend. i don't have a decomposition handy (and really, i need it), but i read that much of it is due to a considerably lower interest burden due to the all-time-low cost of borrowing. so in the event of real rates ticking up, or the competitive environment otherwise moving unfavourably, real earnings will fall.

various equity valuation metrics such as the cyclically-adjusted earnings yield (which would incorporate some of the margin mean reversion above), tobin's q ratio, ratio of market cap to GDP, etc. are generating signals that the equity market is significantly overvalued.

i am not much of a macro guy so you may be able to chime in here.
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
some nice blog posts to read (they have links)

http://greenbackd.com/2013/04/08/the-equity-q … me-losses/

http://greenbackd.com/2013/03/21/sp-500-opera … expensive/

http://greenbackd.com/2013/04/03/how-accurate … ting-tool/ -- good discussion in comments on this one.. need to read them

http://greenbackd.com/2013/04/01/aqrs-cliff-a … hiller-pe/

http://greenbackd.com/2013/03/25/warren-buffe … ck-market/
DaGr8Gatzby's avatar
11 years ago
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DaGr8Gatzby
Drunk by Myself
I am limited to trading only Mutual funds and preclearing all ETFs/Stocks. I cannot speculate. What would you guys recommend as good long term buys?
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
so you have a 30 day hold on stocks?

if you just want to buy and hold, i would look at RWX, VWO, VTI, EWJ, those combined make up about 30% of my equity portfolio
DaGr8Gatzby's avatar
11 years ago
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DaGr8Gatzby
Drunk by Myself
NEstor: Correct. I'll look into this.
nestor's avatar
11 years ago
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nestor
nestor
i would just put your cash into a diversified group of ETFs and as you see attractive opportunities >30 days sell down your ETF exposure and allocate to equities.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
r1, link
lucas
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welp, what i hoped for didn't work out. the bonds market really soured over the last three months. :(
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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what's it like to work in finance, nestor?
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
nestor, can you fill out all of the ridiculous forms to transfer money out of the five retirement funds I've accumulated over the years? or tell me about a loophole so I can just be rolling in retirement money in my late 20s?
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
lucas > it's a tough job particularly at the start (with respect to hours) but it really does grow on you. i thought i would be heading back to academia but after various talks with friends who are on the phd route i am plenty happy with the track i'm on and the learning opportunities / free time i have to work on my own projects. i can get into whatever detail you're looking for (if something more specific).

asemi > i know nothing about u.s. personal taxes! sorry.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
fuuuck I forgot how country-dependent that would be. I wasn't serious anyway I just wanted to lament the ridiculous paperwork involved with dumb life shit like managing retirement money.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
if my recent canoeing trip has reminded me of one thing, it's how often you just need to get out of the canoe, stand in the muck, and pull the boat over a pile of rotting logs. you might get a couple leeches on your feet, but at least you're moving out of the swamp!

ok, weird analogy, that's all to say i'd just get all the paper in one place and then dedicate an afternoon to it. no better way.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
I was hoping you were saying I should go on a camping trip and get leeches and forget about money, because that's what I'd like to do.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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yeah, that's what i was thinking at first, too
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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damnit, my TIP bonds ETF has been bouncing around between $110 and $113 for the last two months. i wish it would bounce out of this rut! i don't think i'm much of an investor.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
preserving capital is an infinitely better outcome than permanently impairing it, don't sweat it
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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you mean that i should ride it out as long as i can? that's what i'm trying to do...
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
the market is totally broken. i'm convinced more than ever of the madness of qe infinity... on the other hand, lr's TIPS fund made a little money this week
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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luckily i only own 60 shares of LQD and 60 shares of TIP, so both being down about $10 from what i paid, i'm only out $1200. but i've been earning all those dividends, so there's that.
DaGr8Gatzby's avatar
10 years ago
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DaGr8Gatzby
Drunk by Myself
Still can't get rid of MSFT. Oh well. :/ I'm out of the trading game.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
For what it's worth, I like MSFT (as an investor, not as a consumer). It is really cheap, and there is an activist investor in place where your cost is not entirely dissimilar to theirs. But if your whole portfolio is MSFT, I would diversify :)
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
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we're at a 7 month high for LQD!