June's research paper: Intangible Value ✨

Can value investing strategies be improved by adding intangible assets?
👾 The Asset-Light Economy
🔮 The Dark Matter of Finance
🏰 Intangible Moats
📉 The Disruption of Value
👨‍🎓 Fixing the "Value Factor"

(Not investment advice)

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There is no doubt that many new age businesses will do fantastically well for quiet a while.

But, will they turn out to be good stocks, is up for debate.

One needs to see how much of the growth has already been built up in the current price.

Risk-reward 🤔

"You don't drive a truck that weighs 9,900 pounds across a bridge that says "Limit 10,000 pounds" because you can't be that sure."- Warren Buffett

1/ Howard Marks once said that before buying an asset, above anything, he wants to know “the amount of optimism that’s in the price.”

All investors can do this with a handy tool: The Reverse DCF.

I'll also leave a download link to my compact DCF Model at the end of this thread.

2/ We all know a regular DCF. But's what a "Reverse DCF"?

If we consider that a DCF is a Linear Equation, we could say the 'X' (The unknown variable) is the Intrinsic Value.

In a Reverse DCF, we start with the Market Price and try to find some other variable, say Sales Growth.

3/ Let's start by taking an example: VST Industries, a Cigarette-maker based in India.

I valued them on my blog a while ago. I'll be retaining the old assumptions, but using the latest financials.

So please note that the Valuation isn't accurate

4/ This is a "Regular DCF" of VST Industries. The Assumptions I've made indicate an Overvaluation.

The Intrinsic Value is Rs. 3,012, but the Market Price is Rs. 3,492.

Let's not dwell on whether this is correct, since we discussed earlier that this isn't an accurate Valuation.

5/ If we want to do a "Reverse DCF" instead, we need to pick a different variable to 'find'. Say, I will pick the Sales Growth numbers.

I will now remove the Sales Growth numbers from the Model and assume that Sales Growth is the same across the years for ease of calculation.

@SunDudez @Iamsamirarora Even if one had invested when Infosys valuations' were at its peak, one would have still made index-par returns in hindsight