 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Fundamental analysis" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Part of a series on |
| Financial markets |
|---|
 |
| Bond market |
| Stock market |
| Other markets |
| Alternative investment |
| Over-the-counter (off-exchange) |
| Trading |
| Related areas |
Fundamental analysis, inaccounting andfinance, is the analysis of a business'sfinancial statements (usually to analyze the business'sassets,liabilities, andearnings); health;[1]competitors andmarkets. It also considers the overall state of the economy and factors including interest rates, production, earnings, employment, GDP, housing, manufacturing and management. There are two basic approaches that can be used: bottom up analysis and top down analysis.[2] These terms are used to distinguish such analysis from other types ofinvestment analysis, such astechnical analysis.
Fundamental analysis is performed on historical and present data, but with the goal of making financialforecasts. There are several possible objectives:
There are two basic methodologies investors rely upon when the objective of the analysis is to determine what stock to buy and at what price:
Investors can use one or both of these complementary methods for stock picking. For example, many fundamental investors use technical indicators for deciding entry and exit points. Similarly, a large proportion of technical investors use fundamental indicators to limit their pool of possible stocks to "good" companies.
The choice of stock analysis is determined by the investor's belief in the different paradigms for "how the stock market works". For explanations of these paradigms, see the discussions atefficient-market hypothesis,random walk hypothesis,capital asset pricing model,Fed model,market-based valuation, andbehavioral finance.
Fundamental analysis includes:
The intrinsic value of the shares is determined based upon these three analyses. It is this value that is considered the true value of the share. If the intrinsic value is higher than the market price, buying the share is recommended. If it is equal to market price, it is recommended to hold the share; and if it is less than the market price, then one should sell the shares.
Investors may also use fundamental analysis within differentportfoliomanagementstyles.
Investors using fundamental analysis can use either a top-down or bottom-up approach.
The analysis of a business's health starts with a financial statement analysis that includesfinancial ratios. It looks at dividends paid,operating cash flow, new equity issues and capital financing. The earnings estimates and growth rate projections published widely byThomson Reuters and others can be considered either "fundamental" (they are facts) or "technical" (they are investor sentiment) based on perception of their validity.
Determined growth rates (of income and cash) and risk levels (to determine thediscount rate) are used in various valuation models. The foremost is thediscounted cash flow model, which calculates the present value of the future:
The simple model commonly used is theP/E ratio (price-to-earnings ratio). Implicit in this model of a perpetual annuity (time value of money) is that the inverse, or the E/P rate, is the discount rate appropriate to the risk of the business. Usage of the P/E ratio has the disadvantage that it ignores future earnings growth.
Because the future growth of the free cash flow and earnings of a company drive the fair value of the company, thePEG ratio is more meaningful than theP/E ratio. ThePEG ratio incorporates the growth estimates for future earnings, e.g. of theEBIT. Its validity depends on the length of time analysts believe the growth will continue and on the reasonableness of future estimates compared to earnings growth in the past years (oftentimes the last seven years). IGAR models can be used to impute expected changes in growth from current P/E and historical growth rates for the stocks relative to a comparison index.
The amount of debt a company possesses is also a major consideration in determining its financial leverage and its health. This is meaningful because a company can reach higher earnings (and this way a higherreturn on equity and higherP/E ratio) simply by increasing the amount of net debt. This can be quickly assessed using thedebt-to-equity ratio, thecurrent ratio (current assets/current liabilities) and thereturn on capital employed (ROCE). The ROCE is the ratio of EBIT divided by the "capital employed", i.e. all the current and non-current assets less the operating liabilities, which is the real capital of the company no matter if it is financed by equity or debt.
The advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning has introduced new possibilities for automating fundamental analysis, making it more accessible to individual investors. While earlier automated tools focused on screening for quantitative metrics (such as P/E ratios or revenue growth), modern platforms can also process and interpret qualitative,unstructured data from sources like quarterly earnings reports, news articles, and press releases.[5]
Economists such asBurton Malkiel suggest that neither fundamental analysis nortechnical analysis is useful in outperforming the markets.[6]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
