Equities
33 formulas
Equity formulas value individual stocks using price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, expected earnings growth, required returns, and a margin of safety. They answer questions like "what entry P/E justifies my target return?", "what is the most I should pay for this stock today?", and "what IRR will I realize at exit?" — the building blocks of fundamentals-driven equity investing.
P/E & Earnings
Entry P/E Ratio
Calculates the maximum P/E ratio to pay today so that compounding earnings growth, sold at an assumed exit P/E, delivers the required rate of return — with an optional margin of safety discount.
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Maximum Stock Price
Calculates the maximum price per share to pay today by projecting current EPS forward at the growth rate, applying the exit P/E, and discounting back at the required return — with an optional margin of safety discount.
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Projected EPS from Revenue
Builds future earnings per share from the top down: compound revenue forward at a growth rate, apply an expected net profit margin to get net income, then divide by a share count that shrinks with buybacks or expands with dilution.
Fair Buy Price (Revenue Projection)
Full top-down stock valuation: project revenue, margin, and share count forward to a year-n EPS, apply an exit P/E to get a future share price, discount that price back at your required return, and optionally cut it by a margin of safety.
Expected Annual Return (Revenue Projection)
The inverse of the fair buy price: given what the stock costs today, the annualized return implied by projected revenue, net margin, share count, and an exit P/E multiple.
Earnings Yield
Inverse of the P/E ratio: trailing or forward EPS divided by current price. Expresses earnings as a yield, directly comparable to bond yields and Treasury rates.
PEG Ratio
P/E divided by expected earnings growth rate (in percentage points). Peter Lynch's heuristic for whether a stock's P/E is justified by its growth profile: PEG ≈ 1 is fair, < 1 is cheap, > 1 is expensive.
Showing annual compounding
Implied Growth Rate
Backs the Entry P/E formula out of the unknown growth rate: given a market P/E, exit P/E assumption, required return, and holding period, what EPS growth rate is the market pricing in?
Implied Required Return
Inverts the Entry P/E formula to solve for the required return: given the market P/E, an exit P/E assumption, an expected growth rate, and a holding period, what return does the price imply if all assumptions are met?
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Dividend Discount Models
Gordon Growth Model
Constant-growth dividend discount model: present value of an infinite stream of dividends growing at a constant rate g, discounted at required return r. The foundational dividend-based valuation formula.
No-Growth DDM (Preferred Stock)
Special case of the dividend discount model with zero growth: a perpetual fixed dividend discounted at the required return. The right framework for preferred stock and any fixed-perpetuity income stream.
Two-Stage DDM
Dividend discount model with two distinct growth stages: a high-growth period of n₁ years followed by a perpetual terminal-growth stage. Combines explicit-projection PV with a Gordon-style terminal value.
Sustainable Growth Rate
Maximum growth rate a company can sustain without external financing: ROE multiplied by the retention ratio (1 − payout). Connects dividend policy and capital efficiency to the growth rate input every other valuation formula needs.
Multiples & Book Value
Price-to-Book (P/B)
Stock price divided by book value per share. Compares market value of equity to its accounting book value — a classic Graham-style value metric, especially useful for asset-heavy businesses.
Book Value per Share (BVPS)
Shareholders' equity divided by diluted shares outstanding. The accounting book value of one share — a per-share liquidation-style floor for equity value.
Graham Number
Benjamin Graham's intrinsic-value heuristic for defensive investors: the geometric mean of 22.5 times trailing EPS and book value per share. Encodes Graham's belief that P/E should not exceed 15 and P/B should not exceed 1.5 simultaneously.
EV / EBITDA
Enterprise value divided by EBITDA — a capital-structure-neutral valuation multiple. Compares the total value of the firm (equity + debt − cash) against its operating-cash-flow proxy.
Free Cash Flow Yield
Free cash flow divided by market capitalization. The cash-yield equivalent of earnings yield — answering "what cash return does the equity throw off relative to its price?"
Cost of Capital
CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model)
Cost of equity = risk-free rate + beta × equity risk premium. The most-cited model for translating systematic risk (beta) into a required return on equity.
WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital)
Weighted average of the firm's after-tax cost of debt and cost of equity, weighted by their proportions in the capital structure. The discount rate that pairs with unlevered free cash flow (FCF to firm) in DCF analysis.
Equity Risk Premium
Difference between the expected return on the equity market and the risk-free rate. The compensation investors demand for bearing equity (rather than risk-free) risk — the building block of CAPM.
DCF & Total Return
Two-Stage DCF Valuation
Two-stage discounted cash flow: explicit FCF projection for n₁ years at growth rate g₁, then a Gordon-style terminal value at perpetual growth rate g₂. Discounts both stages at WACC (r) to today.
Total Shareholder Return (TSR)
Annualized total return to shareholders including capital appreciation and dividends received. Computed as the geometric average return over the holding period, treating dividends as an additional terminal cash flow.
Buyback Yield
Dollars spent on share repurchases divided by market capitalization. The buyback equivalent of dividend yield — measures cash returned to shareholders via repurchases rather than dividends.
Shareholder Yield
Sum of dividend yield, buyback yield, and debt-paydown yield. The complete picture of cash returned to shareholders — a more comprehensive successor to dividend yield as a yield-style equity screen.
Risk-Adjusted Returns
Sharpe Ratio
Excess return per unit of total volatility. Computes the mean of the return series, subtracts the risk-free rate, and divides by the sample standard deviation of returns.
Sortino Ratio
Like Sharpe, but the denominator uses only downside deviation (volatility of returns below the risk-free rate), not total volatility. Penalizes losses but not upside swings.
Treynor Ratio
Excess return per unit of systematic (market) risk. Numerator is the same as Sharpe; denominator is beta instead of total volatility.
Information Ratio
Active return per unit of tracking error. Numerator is the mean excess return over the benchmark; denominator is the standard deviation of those excess returns (the tracking error).
Portfolio Variance (2-Asset)
Variance of a two-asset portfolio. Combines individual variances with the covariance term that captures diversification benefits when correlation is below 1.
Geometric Mean Return
Compounded average periodic return. Multiplies (1 + r) across all periods, takes the n-th root, and subtracts 1. The honest "actual realized growth" of the series.
Arithmetic Mean Return
Simple average of periodic returns. Sum of returns divided by the number of periods.
Coefficient of Variation (CV)
Standard deviation divided by mean — risk per unit of return. Unitless, so it compares cleanly across investments with different return scales.