In a discounted cash flow analysis, the discount rate is the depreciation of time during the valuation of money. In a nutshell, the discount rate tells us that money is worth more today than it is in ...

Open Sources is an Author Experience series that focuses on free investment-related tools from across the Web. (Estimating the present value of a future stream of cash flows is essential to investing.

Investopedia contributors come from a range of backgrounds, and over 25 years there have been thousands of expert writers and editors who have contributed. Andy Smith is a Certified Financial Planner ...

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

How to value a stock? The main financial analysis techniques are discounted cash flow (DCF analysis) and comparable company ...

Discounting a future cash flow expresses future returns in today's dollars. This allows a fair comparison between initial business expenses and your expected or realized returns. As an example, you ...

DCF model estimates stock value by discounting expected future cash flows to present value. Using multiple valuation methods with DCF can enhance accuracy in stock evaluations. DCF's effectiveness is ...

An investor can do the most thorough analysis of a company, poring over financial statements, reading tomes of research, consulting industry experts, and so forth. One can be completely convinced of a ...