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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news because.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I Gotta have fa.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who
knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
Nowhere is understanding value more important than in the stock market. Sure,
prices get quoted every second, every tick, but value that's
a much more challenging problem. Whether you're buying broad indices
(00:42):
or purchasing specific stocks, it pays to not be a
cynic and understand both price and value of your investments.
I'm Barry Ritolts, and on today's edition of At the Money,
we're going to explain how to become more savvy about
understanding equity values. The value you pay for your investment
(01:04):
has an outsized impact on your long term returns. To
help us unpack all of this and what it means
for your portfolio, let's bring in Professor Aswath Damaduran of
NYU's School of Business. He is often referred to as
the Dean of valuation for his extensive work in the area.
He's written numerous books on the subject, including Damadoran on Valuation,
(01:29):
Narrative and Numbers, and the textbook Investment Valuation Tools and
Techniques for determining the value of any asset. So, Professor,
let's just start with the basic question, why are valuations
so important when it comes to equities.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I'm going to give you a cynical answer. They're not
important if you're a trader. Traders live on pricing. In
the essence of pricing is you buy at a low price,
you set at a high price, and it doesn't really
matter why the price changes if you get the direction dright,
value matters if you're an investor. To me, the definition
of an investor is you buy something for less than.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
What it's worth.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And the essence of values, you're trying to estimate what
something is worth. But most as I said, it depends
on the philosophy you bring in. Are you an investor
or your trader, because that's going to dry whether value
matters to you.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So let's talk about identifying that intrinsic value of what
something is worth with any specific company. How can you
determine that valuation.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's as old as time.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
That Venetian glass maker is sold at business in the
Middle Ages. Probably sold it to somebody bought it because
of the cash flows he generated, the risk in those
cash flows, and how much those cash flows are going
to grow. It's cash flows, growth and risk. That's the
essence of value. That's always been true. We act like
we invented valuation in the last century in finance because
(02:52):
we came up with all these neat little models and
metrics to measure risk and bring it into what you
need to make. But always been driven by cash flows,
growth and risk. And how you get to that value
can come from different pathways. I use intrinsic valuation, you know,
in that sense as capturing anybody who thinks about those fundamentals.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
So let's dive into that intrinsic valuation based on cash flow,
growth and risk. What different ways are there to measure
the fundamental value of a company? And how do these
different valuations reveal intrinsic value?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I mean, ultimately, cash flows, growth and risk are not
going to be different for different people. The way we
think about risk, though, can differ depending on who you
are as an investor and what do you think matters.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I mean, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
In traditional finance, we think about risk by looking at
how prices move for a stock relative to the market.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
But there are intrinsic value.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
People argue that true measure of risk is what happens
to your earnings. Your revenues are operating metrics. So even
within people who believe in intrinsic value, we can have
disagreements about how to measure risk, what is the right
cash flow to look at, and what's the growth rate
that you think about over what periods. So while we
might have twenty people in a room, all of whom
(04:12):
buy into intrinsic value, we can come up with twenty
different estimates of intrinsic value for the same company at
the same point in time.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So we always hear about price to sales, price to book,
price to earnings. Are these all that different, They're just
variations on fundamentals, or are they very different ways of
looking at the same company.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Philosophically, they're very different because when you compute the price
earnings or the ev Tabidov price to book for a company,
what you do is you compare to other companies out there,
and you make a judgment and saying, in this company
trades at ten times earnings, other companies like it, and
I'm going to put quotes on like it trade at
fifteen times earnings. Therefore a cheap that's a pricing judgment.
(04:53):
There's nothing value in here, there's no intrinsic value judgment.
That's why all of seal side equity research, i would argue,
is all about pricing.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
It's not about valuation.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Nothing wrong with it, but we should be honest about
what we're doing. So when you use ratios, it's because
you want to find something cheap by comparing it to
other things out there that are being traded right now,
and you're looking at what other people are.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Paying, so you're looking at price. When people look at
stocks that way, they're looking at price and relative valuation,
non intrinsic value. Let's talk about some of the things
you've explained in your books. Valuation requires a deeper understanding
of the business, including how it makes money and its
future prospects. Give us a little more detail on that.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I'll give you an example, and it's a personal example.
I bought in Verdia purely by luck.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
In two thousand and eighty. I didn't see AI coming,
none of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So sometimes your best investments happened by accident. So last
year I had to revalue in Vidio for a simple reason.
I mean I bought it at twenty seven dollars per sit. Yeah,
the stock was trading at eight hundred dollars per share,
and I had to decide is it time to leave?
So as I sat down to value in Vidia, I
started with a presumption that was a computer check company
(06:10):
that had made chips and sold them, and I had
to estimate cash flows based on that.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's only as I started.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Digging a little deeper that I realized that they're not
a chip maker, They're a chip designer. Every Nvidia chip
is made by TSMC, which basically changes the way you
think about the business. If you're doing pricing, you might
be able to gloss over it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That they do it.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But if we're doing intrinsic valuation, because I have to
estimate cash flows, I have to think about what is
it that they spend to create these revenues, and that
requires an understanding of how they conduct their business. I
mean Warren Buffett and a famous saying that he doesn't
buy stocks, he buys shares of businesses. That, to me,
in essence, is what you're doing in intrinsic valuation. You're
(06:55):
not buying a share of Apple or a share of Amazon.
You're buying a slice of those businesses is that's what
you're doing. You better understand what you're buying before you
pay a price.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So can we apply the same theory of valuation to
broad indices as opposed to just individual stocks.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Absolutely, I mean it's cash flows, growth and risk drive
the value of Invidia. Cash flows, growth and risk, because
what drives the value the S and P five hundred
or the Nasdaq. In fact, that's the process I use
at the start of every month to come up with
an estimate or what investors are pricing in the S
and P five hundred and what they can expect to
earn given the cash flow. It's a very intrinsic value
(07:34):
view of what can you expect to make as a
rate of return on an index?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So that raises, you know, the real important question, what
do these measures of evaluations mean for future expected returns?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The more you pay for something, let's cut away from
all of the noise in this process. The more you
pay for something upfront, the lower your expected returns are
going to be.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Because if you.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Pay more upfront, and that's just common sense. So when
you buy the S and P five hundred at fifty
three hundred, you can expect to earn a lower return
than if you bought it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
At fifty one hundred.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So if you bought it last week, your expected denerves
lower than if you bought it today. And that's at
the basis of intrinsic value. It's about paying the right
price for something upfront.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Is the most critical decision you make.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So you consistently in all your books emphasize that value
is not price. So how should investors think about the
difference between the quoted fluctuated price we see every day,
the quoted fluctuating price that we see every moment on
the market, and that deep intrinsic value.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Recognize that are two different processes. Nothing makes one better
than the other. Different processes. Values driven by changes in
your earnings, cash flows, growth, risk, and that's captured by
changing value over time. So I'm not saying intrinsic value
somehow stable stagnant number. The intrinsic value in radio doubled
because of its entry into AI. Intrinsic value can change.
(09:14):
Price is driven by demand and supply, driven by mood
and momentum, and I think one of the best indicators
you can take a mood and momentum is when the
momentum is good.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
All news is good news.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
In fact, there's a whole segment of finance called behavioral finance,
and behavioral finance tries to explain why price can not
only deviate from value but stay different for long periods.
There is this inherent belief that value investors have that
price will move towards value and it will happen quickly.
That's not true. Price can deviate from value. It can
(09:49):
stay separated from value for long periods, which means, if
you're an intrinsic value investor, you're going to get incredibly
frustrated because you think you got it right, but you
keep losing money.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So you're referring to mean reversion. The expectation is that
pricey things eventually be come back down to fair value,
and inexpensive things will eventually be recognized and return to
fair value. How long does this process take? Is it
guaranteed to happen? Does that mean reversion always occur?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It's not just mean reversion, it's assumption that values what
matters in the long term. I mean that's almost I
mean when I start my valuation class, I started the
question do you have faith? My students look at me say,
it's evaluation class.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I said, the essence of investing is faith. Faith that
your estimated value is the right value, and faith that
the price will move to value. And the essence of faith.
If you asked me to prove it, and if you
told me, tell me what will cause it to happen,
my answer is, I don't know. It's a mystery. I mean,
it's like going to church and going up to your
pastor or your rabbi and saying, can you give me.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Some proof that God exists?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I keep coming back every you know, every week because
I and if that rabbi, a priest or you know,
is telling you the truth, they should say look enough.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I can't give you that proof. It's faith. And I
think that's what makes investing.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So difficult is it's driven by faith rather than by proof.
So if you ask me, you know, if I bought
something undervalued, am I guaranteed to make money in the
long term?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Absolutely not. And you have to be okay with it.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
If you're not okay with it buying a text file,
don't invest or be a trader. The essence of investing
is you can do everything right and have nothing to
show for it, and you have to be okay with that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Wow, So, professor, bottom line it for us when we
think about valuation, when investors look at equities, what should
be foremost in their minds before deploying capital.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Leys be honest with yourself. Now, what is the game
you're playing?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
If you're playing the trading game, don't lie to yourself
about caring about fundamentals and earnings and cash flows.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Just play the trading game.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Look at charts, look at technical indicators, look at mood
and momentum, because that's what you're playing. If you want
to be an investor, you need to do your homework.
You can't hide behind the fact of I've never done
an accounting or evaluation closet or understand these financial statements.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
The essence of investing.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Is you've got to be able to look through those
financial statements and be able to gauge the value of
a company. You might not want to use the full
technology of intrinsic valuation, but you need to start thinking
about businesses and value in a much more in a
much deeper way than you're doing right now.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
If that's not your thing, that's fine.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
There are lots of people who get richest traders and
there's nothing wrong with trading. Just play that game well.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
So to wrap up, investors who have a long term
time horizon should be very aware of the variations in valuations.
The more you pay for a given stock or a
given market index, the lower you future expected returns are.
Understand that there are no guarantees in the market, and
(13:06):
merely buying cheap stocks is no guarantee that you're gonna
outperform or even market perform in the future. I'm Barry
Retults and this is Bloomberg's at the Money