I review 150 textbooks on corporate finance and valuation published between 1979 and 2009 by authors such as Brealey, Myers, Copeland, Damodaran, Merton, Ross, Bruner, Bodie, Penman, and Arzac, and find that their recommendations regarding the equity premium range from 3% to 10%, and that 51...

We compute the shareholder value creation and the return of the companies in the IBEX 35 for the 19-year period 1991-201'3 The average return was 11%, but 2.9% was due to the decline in interest rates (from 13% to 5.5%). The shareholder value creation in the whole period was 23 billion euros,...

This paper contains the statistics of a survey about the Risk-Free Rate (RF) and the Market Risk Premium (MRP) used in 2017 for 41 countries. We got answers for 68 countries, but we only report the results for 41 countries with more than 25 answers. The average (RF) used in 2017 was smaller than...

The Market Portfolio is not an efficient portfolio. There are many evidences that tell us that: the equal weighted indexes have beaten their market-value weighted indexes for many years, many easy-to-build portfolios (some “smart-beta”, “multifactors”) have beaten market-value weighted...

The value of tax shields (VTS) defines the increase in the company's value as a result of the tax saving obtained by the payment of interest. However, there is no consensus in the existing literature regarding the correct way to compute the VTS. Most authors think of calculating the VTS in terms...

We show, as simply as possible, the model's development, its implications and the assumptions on which it is based.The paper also contains 307 interesting comments and criticism from several professors, finance professionals and Ph.D. students about the CAPM: 234 basically agree in using the...

The document starts with 100 questions that students, alumni and other persons (judges, arbitrageurs, clients…) have posed to me over the past years. They were recompiled so as to help the reader remember, clarify and, in some cases, discuss some useful concepts in finance. Most of the...

On April 16, 2012 the Argentine Federal Government decreed the intervention of YPF. Its share price declined 29% the day after. Two weeks later the Argentinean Parliament approved the expropriation of 51% of the YPF shares owned by Repsol. We prepared a month ago the case “Valuation of an...