• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Safal Niveshak

Wit. Wisdom. Value Investing.

  • Articles
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Podcasts
    • The One Percent Show
    • The Inner Game
  • Books
  • Ethics
  • Contact
  • Log In
  • Mastermind
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Analysis & Valuations / Intrinsic Value: The Holy Grail of Value Investing

Intrinsic Value: The Holy Grail of Value Investing

“You should always buy the stock of a good company.” In isolation, this seems a very valid statement.

But look at this – “You should always buy the stock of a good company, whatever the price.”

Now, this is a highly dangerous advice to give to someone.

A great company can translate into a great investment. But all great companies do not translate into great investments.

Confused? Well let me clarify.

There is a business behind a company. And there is a great business behind a great company – one that has all the ingredients of success, enjoys pricing power, generates a lot of free cash flow, is not much troubled by competition, and has a very good management team at helm.

So this business has a great value. But it will make a great investment only if it is bought at a reasonable price.

“But how do you know what is a reasonable price?” you may ask.

Well, you just need to identify the ‘value’ of a business and match it with the price at which its stock trades in the stock market.

So if the ‘value’ of a business is Rs 100 per share and its share is trading in the stock market at Rs 50 per share, would you buy it or not? Of course, you would lap it up. Who wouldn’t like to buy something at a 50% discount to its value?

But now the question is – how do you calculate the ‘value’ of a business? How do you give a number to what a business is worth?

Enter…Intrinsic Value
Intrinsic value, in simple terms, is the fundamental value of a business.

As per the legendary investor Warren Buffett, “Intrinsic value is an all-important concept that offers the only logical approach to evaluating the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.”

Buffett defines intrinsic value as the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life.

As we have discussed on Safal Niveshak in the past, a good business is one that generates lots of free cash flow year after year. This is the money that is left over after paying taxes and interest on borrowings, after spending for new expansion, and after adjusting for the money that is required in the day to day running of the business (also known as ‘working capital’).

A good business is one that is able to generate some excess cash after taking care of all this. A bad business is one that eats into its cash due to these things and has lesser cash at its disposal at the end of the year than what it started the year with.

Coming back to Buffett’s definition of intrinsic value, it is nothing but the ‘present value’ of the excess cash (also known as ‘free cash flow’) that a business can generate over a period of next 10-20 years.

Now the question you may have is – what does ‘present value’ stand for and what is its relevance?

Let me take you through a simple explanation.

You would agree that money has a value when lent over a period of time. So if you lend someone Rs 100 for a period of one year and ask for an interest of 10%, the total money that you will receive after one year would be Rs 110 (Rs 100 of original capital plus Rs 10 of interest).

In other words, the ‘future’ value of Rs 100 1-year down the line is Rs 110.

Alternatively, the ‘present’ value of this Rs 110 that you will receive after 1 year is Rs 100 as of now. Simple, isn’t it?

Similarly, to calculate the intrinsic value of a business (what it is worth ‘today’), we need to calculate the present value of cash that it will generate after 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, and so on.

Apart from this method of discounting cash flows, there are a few other methods that you can use to calculate the intrinsic value of a stock. We will discuss them over the course of next few weeks.

But for now, just understand that ‘intrinsic value’ is one of the most important concepts you must learn in your life as an investor.

This is because without knowing the intrinsic value of a stock, it’s impossible to know whether you are paying the right price for it or not.

And you know that the price you pay is the most important thing when it comes to succeeding as an investor.

If you pay a cheap enough price, you can make money in even the worst businesses. If you pay an expensive price, you can lose money for long periods of time in even the best businesses.

Here is an illustration of the relationship between intrinsic value of a stock and its market price. As the chart suggests, if you know the intrinsic value, you can make out when the stock is underpriced (and therefore good for buying) and when it is overpriced (thus ripe for selling).


A correct value…or just a guess?
Despite its usefulness, Buffett warns that the calculation of intrinsic value of a business will mostly throw up a highly subjective figure. And this figure will change as estimates of future cash flows are revised (given that the future is unknown).

Anyways, despite its subjective nature, intrinsic value remains an all-important and the most logical way to evaluate a company’s true business value, which helps us to identify the attractiveness of a stock.

It is important to understand that even when a company is good, it is important to see whether the stock’s valuations justify its purchase. As Buffett says, he invests only when he can find:

  1. Businesses he can understand;
  2. With favourable long-term prospects;
  3. Operated by honest and competent people; and
  4. Priced very attractively.

He then adds, “We usually can identify a small number of potential investments meeting requirements (1), (2) and (3), but (4) often prevents action.”

So there you are. Even if a business passes all tests of quality, its stock must be avoided if its valuations are not attractive in relation to its intrinsic value.

Join 90000+ Smart Investors

Subscribe to my best stuff on investing, stock analysis, and human behaviour. Plus get access to Seven E-Books on Investing + Two Special Reports + One Stock Analysis Excel. All for FREE!

No charge. Unsubscribe anytime.

Be a part of my growing tribe. Join me on Twitter.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. sudhir says

    December 15, 2011 at 10:28 am

    Well written. The hallmark of a good writer is simplicity and easy language.

    Reply
    • Vishal Khandelwal says

      December 15, 2011 at 11:17 am

      Thanks for your feedback, Sudhir!

      Reply
  2. Kiran says

    December 15, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    I must thank for starting education series for common investor like me . As engineer and analytical mind ” Instrinsic Value ” is really intresting to understand .

    Keenly waiting your next article on detail calculation of Instrinsic Value by different method .

    Again I want to know more about EV ” Economic Value ” of stock .

    Keep doing this noble work . Billions of thanks for your value investing stock market education by Safal Niveshak Post .

    Reply
    • Vishal Khandelwal says

      December 15, 2011 at 3:06 pm

      Hi Kiran, thanks a lot for your feedback!

      You can also sign up for my free value investing course – Value Investing for Smart People – to get a better understanding of the different methods of calculation of intrinsic value. You can sign up on this page – https://eepurl.com/eJlZM

      Regards,
      Vishal

      Reply
  3. Sameer says

    December 16, 2011 at 7:20 am

    Vishal,

    I am an engineer with a very limited understanding of finance….! I was able to understand every word at am ready to apply them in practical sense …..
    Well credit offcourse goes to you for simplifying…..”Great Minds keep it simple”

    Reply
    • Vishal Khandelwal says

      December 16, 2011 at 7:30 am

      Hey Sameer, thanks for your feedback…and good to know that I have been able to do justice to your time spent on reading the article by making things simpler.

      Regards,
      Vishal

      Reply
  4. Guruprasad SP says

    September 10, 2012 at 2:01 am

    Hi Vishal,
    I recently joined your site and trust me , I have gained a lot more knowledge from your articles, I cant thank you enough. Thank you so much Vishal. I wonder how people like you exist on earth 🙂 , who are so generous to share and educate everyone and yet being humble ….god bless you and please continue what you are doing to enlighten us in the journey of stock market and wealth creation without bothering what others say .
    I have a small request , I saw few companies being analyzed by you with a valuation models…Could you please through more light on the valuation models and please please explain the individual models in your Origional way as always , to calculate the intrinsic value of a share …This would definatley benefit all of us , hope this would be considered .
    Thanks again, this site has now become one of the best sites to education on Value investing

    Regards

    Reply
    • Vishal Khandelwal says

      September 19, 2012 at 6:08 pm

      Dear Mr. Guruprasad, thanks a lot for the appreciation and motivation!

      As for your query, let me know what exactly you are looking for…because I anyways discuss the valuation models in great detail in all my stock reports. Regards.

      Reply
  5. shirish says

    November 17, 2013 at 5:28 pm

    Vishal as discussed in pune’s workshop. Will you please send me ur excel sheet for better understanding principles behind fundamental analysis to calc different ratios?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. My Stock Investment Philosophy | Safal Niveshak | Equity Stock Trading says:
    May 16, 2012 at 7:40 am

    […] I buy a stock only after I’m comfortable with the business (as described above) and only when the stock price is less than 65-70% of the stock’s intrinsic value. […]

    Reply
  2. 3 Big Lessons from Facebook IPO No One is Talking About | Safal Niveshak says:
    May 21, 2012 at 12:11 am

    […] the underlying business deeply and whether the stock price is justified in relation to the intrinsic value of the […]

    Reply
  3. How to Become Graham’s Intelligent Investor | Safal Niveshak says:
    October 29, 2012 at 12:05 am

    […] (arithmetic of investing) is easy to learn. How to analyze financial statements, how to calculate intrinsic value, and how to assume margin of safety can be learnt with practice. In fact, my 20-lesson course on […]

    Reply
  4. What to do with Opto Circuits 2.0 | Safal Niveshak says:
    February 6, 2013 at 11:37 am

    […] because the stock’s intrinsic value was slightly higher than the stock price, I thought if I had money I would buy the […]

    Reply
  5. Howard Marks on How to Identify Investment Opportunities | Safal Niveshak says:
    February 20, 2013 at 9:21 am

    […] investment can be good or bad depending on when it’s made and what price is paid. It’s been said that “any bond can be triple-A at a […]

    Reply
  6. I Might Be Wrong | Safal Niveshak says:
    April 28, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    […] I bought a stock because I thought my analysis was right. I thought my calculation of the stock’s intrinsic value was right. I thought my decision to buy the stock was right even when I always wondered what could […]

    Reply
  7. Intrinsic Value: A Big Deal? | Safal Niveshak says:
    February 7, 2014 at 1:17 am

    […] Now, I will not go into describing what intrinsic value is all about, because it’s all explained in my earlier post – Intrinsic Value: The Holy Grail of Value Investing. […]

    Reply
  8. The Naysayers Are Right: Tech Will Fail You says:
    August 31, 2020 at 10:40 pm

    […] Source: http://www.safalniveshak.com […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About   |   Newsletter   |   Courses   |   Books   |   Connect

Uncopyrighted & Handcrafted with in India

  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram