A review of the monthly rates of return for Google and Microsoft for two successive five year periods allow me to calculate the beta, ß, for each period. Recall that ß is calculated under the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) as follows:   Getting the data It was easy to download the data on yahoo finance. Once there, I was able to set the time period of interest and frequency as shown here (click to enlarge).   Once you have the set of data that interests you, scroll down to the bottom and download the data, as shown here.   Note that in order to calculate the ß in Excel, you need the market comparison data as well. In order to get that I change my search to ^DJI with the same period and frequency as shown above. However, I noticed that they don’t provide a download option for that data. Since the data is shown in tabular format, you can copy and paste it directly in to Excel. Don’t forget to click Next until you have grabbed all the necessary pages. Google data only went back to 2004, so the analysis for the second five year period for Google has fewer data points than the same analysis for Microsoft. Setup in Excel I setup a workbook with three sheets, one for MSFT, one for GOOG and the last for DJI, or market data. Since I wanted to get two success five year periods, I added an empty line at the five year mark. I hid all but the date, closing price and adjusted closing price on each sheet. Adjusted closing price In order to get the most accurate historical view of return rate, I used the adjusted closing price to calculate my monthly return. Formatting I then display the market data side by side with the stock specific return rate on each page. Excel conditional formatting made it easy to show movement graphically. That graphical view is a good sanity check while reviewing the formulas. Scatter plot Finally I inserted a scatter plot and used Excel’s built in linear mapping to show the ß line and calculate R-squared. Note that I also calculated ß using the SLOPE formula...

When it comes time to inform an investment decision, it’s essential to know whether or not a present opportunity represents enough present value to justify the investment. If so, at what level and over what time period. Certainly risk factors in, and with such a broad range of opportunities today, including stock markets, bonds, start ups, etc., there’s a lot to take in to account. The answer to the value and timing of an investment with respect to other available investments is given by the Present Value formula (ref for all equations). where P is the present value C is the anticipated future cash flow r is the interest rate of an alternative investment of similar risk t is the number of investment periods. This may change depending on compounding Another way to look at this is as a cash flow C and a Discount Factor D. where The rate r above is the opportunity cost of captial, or opportunity cost. Note that for multiple cash flows, the equation can be summed  Amount, Time and Risk From an investment perspective, the focus of the above equation is cash flow. More specifically, Amount of cash flow Timing of the cash flow Risk associate with the cash flow All three items factor in to the present value formula, and the present value formula informs many financial decisions, including being the basis for perpetuity and annuity analysis and...

In the first lecture of my corporate finance course, the professor make a case in favor of having financial markets, including their intermediaries, like banks. He summarized his case into the four following points. Transport consumption over time (save money, invest) Reduction of risk (through diversification) Liquidity (allows trade to happen faster) Information (trends, evaluation of health) Information From a business manager’s perspective, the fourth bullet is critical. The information that comes from financial markets informs nearly every decision he makes, including production schedules, marketing functions, labor decisions, benefits structure and timing, etc. Since business decisions should be informed by data (unfortunately we find that is not always the case, but I’ll comment on that more in another post), the financial markets provide that data. Opportunity Cost of Capital One common question is whether or not some opportunity represents enough value to justify investment. If so, at what level and over what time period. Certainly risk can factor in, but with such a broad range of opportunities today, including stock markets, bonds, start ups, etc., there’s a lot more to take in to account. Ultimately the information that comes from the financial markets drives the valuation of investment opportunities, including their amount, timing and...