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 ...

Discounted cash flow, or DCF, is a tool for analyzing financial investments based on their likely future cash flow. When an investment will cost more money to buy, generate less money in return, or ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

The discounted cash flow model is a time-tested approach to estimate a fair value for any stock investment. Here's a basic primer on how to use it. Figuring out what a company's shares are worth is ...