Quantitative Approaches to Forecasting Corporate Profits

The annual value of equity stock exchange transactions and the annual value of mergers and acquisitions involve thousands of millions of pounds and thus considerable resources have been devoted to investment analysis, the discipline that sets out to value the worth of corporate enterprises. Probably the main requirement in investment analysis is the forecasting of company earnings, asset values and their growth rates. These forecasts are then used to determine the “correct” share price either by subjective means or by some equity valuation model.