"Throughout his storied career, Aswath Damodaran has searched for the universal key to demystify corporate finance and valuation. Now, at last, he offers the groundbreaking answer to readers everywhere. It turns out there is a corporate lifecycle very much like our own - with unique stages of...

Much of financial theory and practice is built on the presumption that markets are liquid. In a liquid market, you should be able to buy or sell any asset, in any quantity, at the prevailing market price and with no transactions costs. Using that definition, no asset is completely liquid and...