OXY

Traditional Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) models have been been underutilized in equity analysis over the years primarily because of the assumptions one has to sign off on. We will concentrate on just two of the major issues we have with traditional DCF models, the lack of ability to deal with competition and the perpetuity assumption embedded in a DCF model. These assumptions lead to irrational calculations of intrinsic value and force analysts to make compromising decisions in their model building efforts.

AFG uses a modified DCF model that accurately addresses the competitive nature of the business while also dealing with the perpetuity issue through our Economic Margin decay or competitive advantage period.

The four factors that affect AFG’s Competitive Advantage Period (CAP) are;

Profitability – High Profit leads to increased competition and a higher decay rate
Variability – Higher volatility leads to less predictability and a higher decay rate
Trend – AFG gives the benefit of the doubt to an upward trend which leads to a lower decay rate
Invested Capital – Large Invested Capital creates barriers to entry and leads to lower decay rate

The Decay Rate is the rate at which the Economic Margins™ will diminish over time due to competition, market conditions and limited investment opportunities. Higher decay rates translate into shorter competitive advantage periods, while lower decay rates translate into longer competitive advantage periods.

The Decay Rate profile is downward sloping to the right, which means that Economic Margins™ over time diminish to zero. This does not mean that the company will not have earnings, but instead the company will have an Economic Margin™ of zero, which indicates there are no excess profits after the investors are paid and the depreciating assets are replaced.When selecting securities, companies that are maintaining a high level of economic profitability or growing their profits rapidly are attractive from an investment standpoint. However, the more profitable a firm is the more likely other companies will attempt compete away excess returns.

To illustrate this, one has to look no further than Dell Computer. Dell Computer had Economic Margins™ hovering around 40% (top 5% of all companies) in 1997 and 1998, but soon every major firm was announcing that they were going to build computers to order. Why? Because they saw the huge profits that Dell was making. The result is that Dell's Economic Margin™ for 1999 was around 25%, a decline of 37.5% in just one year. The remaining factors are relatively straight-forward, in that volatile returns are worth less than consistent returns, companies with an increasing Economic Margins™ are worth more than a company in decline, and large companies have a natural barrier to entry, thus a lower decay rate.

Theory: Excess return gets competed away

Fact: In 1997, the median top decile Economic Margin (EM) firm = 17.4%. 10 years later, that same group of companies had a median EM of 6.5%. On the other hand, the bottom decile had an EM of -12.2%, 10 years later that same group had a median EM of -1.0%.

Current Top Decile Economic Margin Companies (S&P 500 ex. financials)

Join Value Expectations... it's FAST and FREE!

Listed below are the companies in the Energy & Extraction sector within the S&P 500 Index, ranked in order of valuation attractiveness. Currently, the Energy & Extraction sector has the highest median Value Score of all sectors according The Applied Finance Group’s April 2009 Monthly Market Review and looks to be trading at a significant discount relative to its historic valuation.

All Energy Companies (S&P 500) Ranked By Valuation Attractiveness

Energy Sector - Relative Valuation Chart

The graph above shows the median percentage upside for the Energy sector relative to the overall market across time. Values greater than 1 indicate the sector is more undervalued than the market, while values less than 1 indicate the opposite. The red line identifies the historical median value to provide a basis to understand valuation levels relative to historic norms. This example illustrates that the median Energy company is undervalued relative to the market currently and has been trading at a significant discount to its historic relative valuation, indicating a potentially attractive opportunity.

Tickersense.com has recently published an article highlighting 15 companies that have been the leaders of the market since the low on November 20, 2008. Made up mostly of Tech stocks (8 of 15), this list of companies has been responsible for about half of the total change of the S&P500 since November 20, and the author believes it is a good place to start if you are “looking for leadership”. Below is a table highlighting the price performance of 12 of the 15 companies (Financials were excluded as well as WYE and SGP due to takeovers).

A second table provides an analysis of the valuation attractiveness of these companies as well as the market expectations for sales growth implied in the stock’s current price using AFG’s Value Expectations interface. Measuring the spread between a company’s VE sales growth expectations and what it has historically delivered should give you a good idea of which companies have the best chance of meeting or exceeding those expectations, and thus are more likely to outperform.

 Performance From November 20, 2008 to Yesterday's Close

Valuation Attractiveness & Implied Sales Growth Expectations

*AFG’s Value Expectations allows us to understand the Sales Growth, EBITDA Margin, and Asset Turnover a company has to deliver in the future to justify its current trading price. In theory and in normal circumstances, if the imbedded future performance is very conservative relative to the company’s historical performance, the stock is regarded as undervalued. The table displays the implied future Sales Growth of the list of companies assuming their EBITDA Margins and Asset Turnovers stay at the 5 year median levels.