So I’m currently struggling a lot with a case write-up for my finance class. I feel lost (just as I did last semester) because there’s all this talk about stock valuation and corporate models and all that and we’re NEVER taught any real way to connect that to the real world. Nowhere can I find a simple “take these 10 variables from the 10-k, plug them into this equation, and here you go.” As a result, everything I’m reading uses terminology that I can’t actually relate to the real world. Oh, discounted future cash flows? As of when? It’s all a guess anyway.
So yeah. Finance is a joke. It really is. Understanding things like opportunity cost and the time value of money are important, but obscure arcane things like “stock valuation” which have little or no effect on things like “stock price” are irrelevant and stressful.
