Gross Domestic Product Archives | Value Investing - Business and Economic Principles

Value Investing – Key Performance Indicators (Lesson 11)

Phase I - Four Core Principles of Value Investing, Lessons/Tutorials/Resources / By David J Hoare MSA / 12/29/2020 03/01/2022

All of us use indicators everyday to help us manage our lives. These indicators assist us with making good decisions. This same concept exists with stock investments. There are several different indicators related to stock. Most of them are financial in nature and often summed up via business ratios. However, many of the top companies provide additional indicators. One of these additional groups of indicators are ‘key performance’ markers. In effect, they are production based bits of information that assist value investors in developing and validating a good buy/sell model for that particular company.

Performance indicators are different for each industry. For the value investor, understanding the respective industry along with their systems, processes and critical points are essential when evaluating the current stock price along with market reactions. It is important for the value investor to understand not only the quantitative results of performance, but the standard of performance to measure the actual outcome against. In most cases, performance indicators exist with sales, production, and marketing/advertising. The key to success is to incorporate all these different data points and create an impact factor with the company’s stock price.

The end goal of monitoring performance is to determine if the buy/sell model requires any update. It is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ decision. When creating a trend line of data, it is best to look at as much history as possible, the author suggests no less than five years; preferably the trend line should be greater than seven years. Analytical standards place more emphasis on recent outcomes in comparison against the more historical results. Value investors take a more conservative approach and use the average of the trend line to determine the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ model update. The reasoning is simple, short-term results or near-term expectations should have little bearing on overall historical performance and the corresponding buy and sell triggers for a particular stock. Just because the recent performance is either elevated or depressed doesn’t indicate an ongoing trend. Recent performance may have been hampered or enhanced due to environmental or unusual conditions. Basing one’s decision on the most recent results is speculative and not a sound investment concept. Using the overall average is superior as it eliminates speculation.

20 Private Industry Sectors

Industry Standards / By David J Hoare MSA / 02/22/2019 02/23/2021

The gross domestic product comprises 20 private industry sectors and two government groups. All together 22 distinct sectors contribute to the gross domestic product (GDP).

Tangible and Intangible – Business Definitions and Use

Phase II - Financial Analysis / By David J Hoare MSA / 11/03/2014 01/23/2022

Tangible and intangible are terms with several different meanings. A lot of well educated folks have a difficult time providing an all inclusive definition. Someone once described tangible as ‘something that can be burned’. Well, land is tangible and yet, you can’t burn it. Actually, in Boy Scouts, we teach the boys to use dirt to put out fires! But the best overall definition for these terms that I heard was a synonymous statement made by a Supreme Court Justice when trying to define pornography in relation to art. He said something along the line of ‘I don’t have a definition, but I just know it when I see it’. Basically the gray area for the definition is vast. This is true for these two terms because there are various levels of definitions related to their respective use.

There is the classic college textbook definition. It is straight forward, but it doesn’t really begin to get involved in the gray area definitions. Then there is the more extended definition as used in accounting and customarily in the traditional business setting. Really getting into higher thinking and use of the terms comes into play when discussing value. Finally, there is the relationship to each other with regards to economics and the evolving concept of wealth. They are similar to the theory of the Yin and the Yang of life itself.

Value Investing – Gross Domestic Product (Lesson 21)

Phase II - Financial Analysis, Lessons/Tutorials/Resources / By David J Hoare MSA / 06/30/2014 02/12/2022

Gross Domestic Product is defined as the total production for the country. It is measured by including all the dollars spent to purchase products/services from all the various sellers of goods. The largest purchaser of products/services is consumers. Coming in behind consumers are businesses, remember they are buying goods too. This includes everything from office supplies to the raw materials to make the products the consumers ultimately purchase.