STOCKS: Basic Definitions

By Staff Reporters

SPONSOR: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

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When you buy a share of stock, you are taking ownership in a company.  Collectively, the company is owned by all the shareholders, and each share represents a claim on assets and earnings.  If the company distributes profits to its shareholders, you should receive a proportionate share of the earnings.

Stocks are often categorized by the size of the company, or their market capitalization.  The market capitalization is determined by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by the current share price.  The most common market cap classes are small-cap (valued from $100 million to $1 billion), mid-cap ($1 billion to $10 billion), and large cap ($10 billion to $100 billion).

Stocks are also categorized by their sector, or the type of business the company conducts.  Common sectors include utilities, consumer staples, energy, communications, financial, health care, transportation, and technology.

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Stocks are often viewed as being in one of two categories — growth or value.

  • Growth stocks are ones that are associated with high quality, successful companies that are expected to continue growing at a better-than-average rate as compared to the rest of the market.
  • Value stocks are ones that have generally solid fundamentals, but are currently out of favor with the market.  This may be due to the company being relatively new and unproven in the market, or because the company has recently experienced a decline due to the company’s sector being affected negatively.  An example of this would be if the federal government was to levy a new tax on all cell phones, thus negatively affecting all cell phone company stocks.

History has shown that, over time, stocks have provided a better return than bonds, real estate, and other savings vehicles.  As a result, stocks may be the ideal investment for investors with long-term goals.

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MEDICAL PRACTICE: Valuation Adjustments

NET INCOME STATEMENT AND BALANCE SHEET ADJUSTMENTS

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko; MBA MEd CMP®

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SPONSOR: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

Net Income Statement Adjustments

When analyzing a set of financial statements to determine practice value, adjustments (normalizations) generally are needed to produce a clearer picture of likely future income and distributable cash flow. It also allows more of an “apples to apples” line item comparison. This normalization process usually consists of making three main adjustments to a medical practice’s net income (profit and loss) statement.

1. Non-Recurring Items: Estimates of future distributable cash flow should exclude non-recurring items. Proceeds from the settlement of litigation, one-time gains/losses from the selling of assets or equipment, and large write-offs that are not expected to reoccur, each represent potential nonrecurring items. The impact of nonrecurring events should be removed from the practice’s financial statements to produce a clearer picture of likely future income and cash flow.

2. Perquisites: The buyer of a medical practice may plan to spend more or less than the current doctor-owner for physician executive compensation, travel and entertainment expenses, and other perquisites of current management. When determining future distributable cash flow, income adjustments to the current level of expenditures should be made for these items.

3. Non-cash Expenses: Depreciation expense, amortization expense, and bad debt expense are all non-cash items which impact reported profitability. When determining distributable cash flow, you must analyze the link between non-cash expenses and expected cash expenditures.

The annual depreciation expense is a proxy for likely capital expenditures over time. When capital expenditures and depreciation are not similar over time, an adjustment to expected cash flow is necessary. Some practices reduce income through the use of bad debt expense rather than direct write-offs. Bad debt expense is a non-cash expense that represents an estimate of the dollar volume of write-offs that are likely to occur during a year. If bad debt expense is understated, practice profitability will be overstated.

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Balance Sheet Adjustments

Adjustments also can be made to a practice’s balance sheet to remove non-operating assets and liabilities, and to restate asset and liability value at market rates (rather than cost rates). Assets and liabilities that are unrelated to the core practice being valued should be added to or subtracted from the value, depending on whether they are acquired by the buyer.

Examples include the asset value less outstanding debt of a vacant parcel of land, and marketable securities that are not needed to operate the practice. Other non-operating assets, such as the cash surrender value of officer life insurance, generally are liquidated by the seller and are not part of the business transaction.

EDUCATION: Books

SPEAKING: Dr. Marcinko will be speaking and lecturing, signing and opining, teaching and preaching, storming and performing at many locations throughout the USA this year! His tour of witty and serious pontifications may be scheduled on a planned or ad-hoc basis; for public or private meetings and gatherings; formally, informally, or over lunch or dinner. All medical societies, financial advisory firms or Broker-Dealers are encouraged to submit a RFP for speaking engagements: CONTACT: MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com 

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