Editorials

by Rajen Kumar

No Escaping Social Media

Running a magazine concentrating on issues of small and medium enterprises and managing with limited resources is a like living life on the edge. In this rush of meeting deadlines,...

Special Reports

Apr 2012

EMRC, Brussels Associates with SME WORLD as its New Media Partner

EMRC has promoted business partnerships with the developing world and has organised dozens of business forums in key decision-making cities, such as Amsterdam, Rome,...

Knowledge Kit

Market Capitalization, Energy Security, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – SME Knowledge Kit

Aug 2009

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Market capitalization

Market capitalization / capitalization is a measurement of corporate size equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a public company. As owning stock represents owning the company, including all its equity, capitalization could represent the public opinion of a company's net worth and is a determining factor in stock valuation.

Likewise, the capitalization of stock markets or economic regions may be compared to other economic indicators. The total market capitalization of all publicly traded companies in the world was US$51.2 trillion in January 2007 and rose as high as US$57.5 trillion in May 2008 before dropping below US$50 trillion in August 2008 and slightly above US$40 trillion in September 2008.

Valuation

Market capitalization represents the public consensus on the value of a company's equity. An entirely public corporation, including all of its assets, may be freely bought and sold through purchases and sales of stock, which will determine the price of the company's shares. Its market capitalization is the share price multiplied by the number of shares in issue, providing a total value for the company's shares and thus for the company as a whole.

Many companies have a dominant shareholder, which may be a government entity, a family, or another corporation. Many stock market indices such as the S&P 500, Sensex, FTSE, DAX, Nikkei, Ibovespa, and MSCI adjust for these by calculating on a free float basis, i.e. the market capitalization they use is the value of the publicly tradable part of the company. Thus, market capitalization is one measure of "float" i.e., share value times an equity aggregate, with free and public being others.

Note that market capitalization is a market estimate of a company's value, based on perceived future prospects, economic and monetary conditions. Stock prices can also be moved by speculation about changes in expectations about profits or about mergers and acquisitions.

It is possible for stock markets to get caught up in an economic bubble, like the steep rise in valuation of technology stocks in the late 1990s followed by the dot-com crash in 2000. Speculation can affect any asset class, such as gold or real estate. In such events, valuations rise disproportionately to what many people would consider the fundamental value of the assets in question. In the case of stocks, this pushes up market capitalization in what might be called an "artificial" manner. Market capitalization is therefore only a rough measure of the true size of a market.

Financial ratio

In finance, a financial ratio or accounting ratio is a ratio of two selected numerical values taken from an enterprise's financial statements. There are many standard ratios used to try to evaluate the overall financial condition of a corporation or other organization. Financial ratios may be used by managers within a firm, by current and potential shareholders (owners) of a firm, and by a firm's creditors. Security analysts use financial ratios to compare the strengths and weaknesses in various companies. If shares in a company are traded in a financial market, the market price of the shares is used in certain financial ratios.

Ratios may be expressed as a decimal value, such as 0.10, or given as an equivalent percent value, such as 10%. Some ratios are usually quoted as percentages, especially ratios that are usually or always less than 1, such as earnings yield, while others are usually quoted as decimal numbers, especially ratios that are usually more than 1, such as P/E ratio; these latter are also called multiples. Given any ratio, one can take its reciprocal; if the ratio was above 1, the reciprocal will be below 1, and conversely. The reciprocal expresses the same information, but may be more understandable: for instance, the earnings yield can be compared with bond yields, while the P/E ratio cannot be: for example, a P/E ratio of 20 corresponds to an earnings yield of 5%.

Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use; bottom up analysis and top down analysis.[1] The term is used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative analysis and technical analysis.

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