New Valuecruncher Service
Today we are launching a new Valuecruncher website.
Valuecruncher has always been about making the valuation methodologies used by corporate finance professions more accessible to a wider audience. That doesn’t change - but we are now focusing our attention on the valuation of public rather than private companies.
The new site is a free tool for people to create their own valuations of public companies. The site focuses on public companies in the following indices: S&P 500 (US), FTSE 350 (UK), S&P ASX 200 (Australia), S&P TSX Composite (Canada) and NZX 50 (New Zealand). If a company is part of one of those indices it will be in our database. There is a search box to look for companies and a range of paths to browse as well.
Valuecruncher uses a discounted cash flow valuation methodology using a three year forecast period and a terminal growth rate. Valuecruncher populates this discounted cash flow valuation model with a combination of consensus forecast projections for the company, latest balance sheet numbers and Valuecruncher generated inputs. The Valuecruncher valuation is however not a recomendation. The Valuecruncher valuation is intended as a starting point for users to create their own valuations of companies.
The interactive component of the Valuecruncher site allows users to then adjust the key assumptions in the discounted cash flow model to create their own valuations. Registered users can save their valuations and share them with others - who can then adjust the assumptions in the saved valuation.
The Valuecruncher team will continue to write blog posts with our take on the valuation of companies - and link to saved valuations on the site.
Because we are currently using the single valuation approach with the three year forecast period - this means our approach is not appropriate for certain companies and industries (e.g. real estate investment trusts, resource, financial services and insurance companies). These companies still appear in our results - but you can not create a valuation for them.
The team at Valuecruncher are very excited to launch the new site. We have ideas about extending what we have here - but first we want to hear what people think about the site. There is a feedback link on the site - or you can send us an email at feedback@valuecruncher.com.
The Valuecruncher Team - Andrew, JD, Jeremy, Rowan, Sam and Mark
May 15th, 2008 at 7:59 am
[...] companies not covered by conventional investment analysts (I’ve used it), Valuecruncher now offers its tools free online to the general public. Valuecruncher is creating a community of investors, some of whom will take [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Cool service. Have you considered adding more years before calculating the terminal value piece? Or providing the option to do that. I know a lot of financial analysts go out 5-10 years and then assume inflation or slightly above (companies can’t grow at 10% a year forever).
June 1st, 2008 at 4:56 am
@Kevin Berk
Thanks for the comment. We have tried to make the valuation tool as simple as possible. We have limited it to three years for that purpose. We will be posting some information on calculating terminal growth in the near future.
The Valuecruncher Team