Fundamental analysis is a method used to determine the intrinsic value of a security by examining related economic, financial, and other qualitative and quantitative factors. It relies on publicly available information to assess which securities to invest in and when to buy or sell them.
The core premise is that a security's price is determined by its intrinsic value. Although prices fluctuate due to political, economic, and psychological factors, they tend to revolve around this underlying value. Rational investors make decisions based on the relationship between market price and intrinsic value.
There are two primary objectives in fundamental analysis:
- Estimating the intrinsic value of a security to establish a benchmark for determining whether it is overvalued or undervalued.
- Analyzing various factors that logically influence the security’s price to understand the reasons behind its movements and predict future trends.
Key Public Information in Fundamental Analysis
Basic Public Data
Net Assets: The value of assets minus liabilities, representing owners' equity.
Operating Revenue: The total income generated from a company’s primary operations, such as selling goods, providing services, or other business activities. This includes both main and ancillary revenue streams.
Net Profit: The amount of income that remains after all expenses, including taxes, have been deducted.
Capital Reserve: Equity that cannot be distributed as dividends, often arising from sources like share premiums, asset revaluations, or gifts.
Retained Earnings: The cumulative net profits that have been retained in the business rather than distributed to shareholders as dividends.
Total Shares Outstanding: The total number of shares issued by a company.
Public Float: The portion of a company's shares that are available for public trading.
Common Financial Metrics
Earnings Per Share (EPS): Net Profit / Total Shares Outstanding
Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E): Share Price / Earnings Per Share
Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B): Share Price / Net Asset Value Per Share
Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S): Share Price / Revenue Per Share
Price-to-Cash Flow Ratio (P/C): Share Price / Operating Cash Flow Per Share
PEG Ratio: P/E Ratio / Earnings Growth Rate
Return on Assets (ROA): Net Profit / Total Assets
Return on Equity (ROE): Net Profit / Shareholders' Equity
Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT)
Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA)
Enterprise Value (EV)
Analytical Logic and Investment Philosophy
The logic behind fundamental analysis is to identify and exploit market inefficiencies by interpreting public information better than the overall market. The goal is to achieve above-average returns.
Market mispricing generally occurs for two reasons:
- The analyst incorporates more relevant information than the market has considered.
- The analyst interprets the same information differently from the market consensus.
Inefficiencies from the first cause are easier to identify but less common. When diverging from market consensus, it is crucial to rigorously justify your perspective.
The ultimate aim is not simply to identify excellent companies but to find undervalued ones. There is a significant difference between a high-quality business and a cheap stock.
Furthermore, potential returns must always be evaluated against associated risks. Higher expected returns are often compensation for taking on greater risk (as measured by beta), not just a reward for spotting market inefficiencies.
Top-Down Analysis Approach
The top-down method begins with the big picture and narrows down to specific investments:
- Macroeconomic Analysis: Evaluating broad economic indicators such as GDP growth rates, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, productivity, and energy prices on both a national and international scale.
- Industry Analysis: Assessing industry-wide factors like total sales volume, pricing trends, product innovation, competitive landscape, and the number of new market entrants.
- Company Analysis: Examining individual company performance, including sales figures, pricing power, new product development, and profitability.
This approach is commonly associated with sell-side research, focusing on how macroeconomic conditions influence sectors and individual companies.
Bottom-Up Analysis Approach
The bottom-up approach is typically favored by buy-side analysts. It starts with intensive analysis of individual companies, seeking discrepancies between the company's intrinsic value and its market valuation.
The goal is to prove the market wrong by identifying overlooked information or misinterpreted data. Examples include undiscovered contracts that may boost future earnings, undervalued assets due to past poor performance, or underestimation of a company's recovery potential during an industry downturn.
This method targets areas where the market is most likely to be inefficient, such as ignoring asset values, misreading cyclical turns, or misjudging cash flow due to conservative accounting practices.
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Absolute Valuation Methods
Absolute valuation models determine an asset's intrinsic value based on its projected future cash flows. These models rely on fundamentals without comparing the company to others in the market.
Key models include:
- Dividend Discount Model (DDM): Values a stock based on the present value of its predicted future dividends.
Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Model: Values a company based on the present value of its projected future free cash flows. Variations include:
- Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE)
- Free Cash Flow to Firm (FCFF)
Relative Valuation Methods
Relative valuation, or comparables analysis, values a company by comparing it to similar businesses using standardized metrics.
The most common multiples include:
- Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio
- Price-to-Book (P/B) Ratio
Other multiples like EV/EBITDA are also frequently used to compare companies within the same industry.
Fundamental Analysis vs. Technical Analysis
Both fundamental and technical analysis aim to generate excess returns by exploiting market inefficiencies, operating on the belief that markets are not perfectly efficient.
- Technical Analysis operates on the premise that all known information is already reflected in the price. Technicians focus on analyzing historical price and volume data to identify trends and predict future movements. This approach simplifies decision-making by ignoring fundamental data, often leading to more consistent, though sometimes lower, returns in the short term.
- Fundamental Analysis argues that price is a "lossy compression" of all available information. Fundamentalists "decompress" the price by analyzing all underlying factors (both market and public information) to build a detailed forecast of future value. It uses current price as a tool to validate its hypotheses.
In summary, fundamental analysis is generally considered superior for long-term investment horizons, while technical analysis is often favored for short-term trading due to its simplicity and quicker signals.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main goal of fundamental analysis?
The primary goal is to determine a security's intrinsic value by examining all relevant economic, financial, and qualitative factors. This helps investors make informed decisions about whether a security is undervalued or overvalued compared to its current market price.
Which is more important for a beginner: P/E or PEG ratio?
The P/E ratio is a essential starting point as it's simple and widely used. However, the PEG ratio provides a more complete picture because it factors in the company's earnings growth rate, helping to identify growth stocks that may be reasonably priced despite a high P/E.
How does bottom-up analysis differ from top-down?
Top-down analysis starts with the macro economy and narrows down to specific sectors and companies. Bottom-up analysis does the reverse; it starts by analyzing individual companies first, largely ignoring broader economic cycles, to find stocks that are undervalued on their own merits.
Can fundamental and technical analysis be used together?
Yes, many investors combine both methods. They might use fundamental analysis to select undervalued, high-quality stocks (the "what" to buy) and use technical analysis to help determine optimal entry and exit points (the "when" to buy or sell).
What is a major limitation of relative valuation?
A key limitation is that it relies on the market correctly valuing the "comparable" companies. If the entire sector is mispriced (e.g., during a bubble or a crash), relative valuation will produce flawed results, making absolute valuation models more reliable in such scenarios.
Why is the concept of 'margin of safety' important?
A margin of safety—buying a security at a price significantly below its calculated intrinsic value—is a core principle. It provides a buffer against errors in your analysis, unexpected bad news, or general market downturns, thereby reducing investment risk.