First Chicago Method

This one is not written up yet

The definition above is the short version. A full explanation — how it works, a worked example and the exam traps — is still being written. In the meantime the chapter below covers it in context.

Written up from the same chapter

• Bottom-up approachSizing a market by taking the revenue of individual companies and aggregating it upward — accurate where companies disclose, blind where they do not.
• Discounted Cash FlowA valuation method that estimates the cash a business will generate in future years and converts each year back to what it is worth today.
• Enterprise ValueWhat it would cost to buy the whole business — market capitalisation plus debt, less cash — as opposed to market capitalisation, which buys only the equity.
• Fair valueThe theoretical futures price — spot plus the cost of carrying the commodity to expiry — at which a buyer is indifferent between buying today and buying forward.
• Relative valuationValuing an asset from the prices of comparable assets rather than from its own cash flows — quick, intuitive, and dependent on whoever set those comparable prices being right.
• Terminal valueThe value of everything a business earns after the end of the explicit forecast period, capitalised as a perpetuity or an exit multiple and then discounted back — usually most of a DCF answer.