What Is Fundamental Analysis?

Fundamental analysis (FA) is a method of measuring a security's intrinsic value by examining

related economic and financial factors. Fundamental analysts study anything that can affect the
security's value, from macroeconomic factors such as the state of the economy and industry
conditions to microeconomic factors like the effectiveness of the company's management.

The end goal is to arrive at a number that an investor can compare with a security's current price
in order to see whether the security is undervalued or overvalued.

This method of stock analysis is considered to be in contrast to technical analysis, which

forecasts the direction of prices through an analysis of historical market data such as price and
volume.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Fundamental analysis is a method of determining a stock's real or "fair market" value.

 Fundamental analysts search for stocks that are currently trading at prices that are higher
or lower than their real value.
 If the fair market value is higher than the market price, the stock is deemed to be
undervalued and a buy recommendation is given.
 In contrast, technical analysts ignore the fundamentals in favor of studying the historical
price trends of the stock.
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Understanding Fundamental Vs. Technical Analysis

Understanding Fundamental Analysis

All stock analysis tries to determine whether a security is correctly valued within the broader
market. Fundamental analysis is usually done from a macro to micro perspective in order to
identify securities that are not correctly priced by the market.

Analysts typically study, in order, the overall state of the economy and then the strength of the
specific industry before concentrating on individual company performance to arrive at a fair
market value for the stock.

Fundamental analysis uses public data to evaluate the value of a stock or any other type of
security. For example, an investor can perform fundamental analysis on a bond's value by
looking at economic factors such as interest rates and the overall state of the economy, then
studying information about the bond issuer, such as potential changes in its credit rating.
For stocks, fundamental analysis uses revenues, earnings, future growth, return on equity,
profit margins, and other data to determine a company's underlying value and potential for future
growth. All of this data is available in a company's financial statements (more on that below).

Fundamental analysis is used most often for stocks, but it is useful for evaluating any security,
from a bond to a derivative. If you consider the fundamentals, from the broader economy to the
company details, you are doing fundamental analysis.

Investing and Fundamental Analysis

An analyst uses works to create a model for determining the estimated value of a company's
share price based on publicly available data. This value is only an estimate, the analyst's
educated opinion, of what the company's share price should be worth compared to the currently
trading market price. Some analysts may refer to their estimated price as the company's intrinsic
value.

If an analyst calculates that the stock's value should be significantly higher than the stock's
current market price, they may publish a buy or overweight rating for the stock. This acts as a
recommendation to investors who follow that analyst. If the analyst calculates a lower intrinsic
value than the current market price, the stock is considered overvalued and
a sell or underweight recommendation is issued.

Investors who follow these recommendations will expect that they can buy stocks with favorable
recommendations because such stocks should have a higher probability of rising over time.
Likewise stocks with unfavorable ratings are expected to have a higher probability of falling in
price. Such stocks are candidates for being removed from existing portfolios or added as "short
positions.

This method of stock analysis is considered to be the opposite of technical analysis, which
forecasts the direction of prices through an analysis of historical market data such as price and
volume.

Quantitative and Qualitative Fundamental Analysis

The problem with defining the word fundamentals is that it can cover anything related to the
economic well-being of a company. They obviously include numbers like revenue and profit, but
they can also include anything from a company's market share to the quality of its management.

The various fundamental factors can be grouped into two categories: quantitative and qualitative.
The financial meaning of these terms isn't much different from their standard definitions. Here is
how a dictionary defines the terms:

 Quantitative – capable of being measured or expressed in numerical terms.

 Qualitative – related to or based on the quality or character of something, often as
opposed to its size or quantity.
In this context, quantitative fundamentals are hard numbers. They are the measurable
characteristics of a business. That's why the biggest source of quantitative data is financial
statements. Revenue, profit, assets, and more can be measured with great precision.

The qualitative fundamentals are less tangible. They might include the quality of a company's
key executives, its brand-name recognition, patents, and proprietary technology.

Neither qualitative nor quantitative analysis is inherently better. Many analysts consider them
together.

Qualitative Fundamentals to Consider

There are four key fundamentals that analysts always consider when regarding a company. All
are qualitative rather than quantitative. They include:

 The business model: What exactly does the company do? This isn't as straightforward
as it seems. If a company's business model is based on selling fast-food chicken, is it
making its money that way? Or is it just coasting on royalty and franchise fees?
 Competitive advantage: A company's long-term success is driven largely by its
ability to maintain a competitive advantage—and keep it. Powerful competitive
advantages, such as Coca Cola's brand name and Microsoft's domination of the personal
computer operating system, create a moat around a business allowing it to keep
competitors at bay and enjoy growth and profits. When a company can achieve a
competitive advantage, its shareholders can be well rewarded for decades.
 Management: Some believe that management is the most important criterion for
investing in a company. It makes sense: Even the best business model is doomed if the
leaders of the company fail to properly execute the plan. While it's hard for retail
investors to meet and truly evaluate managers, you can look at the corporate website and
check the resumes of the top brass and the board members. How well did they perform in
prior jobs? Have they been unloading a lot of their stock shares lately?
 Corporate Governance: Corporate governance describes the policies in place within
an organization denoting the relationships and responsibilities between management,
directors and stakeholders. These policies are defined and determined in the company
charter and its bylaws, along with corporate laws and regulations. You want to do
business with a company that is run ethically, fairly, transparently, and efficiently.
Particularly note whether management respects shareholder rights and shareholder
interests. Make sure their communications to shareholders are transparent, clear and
understandable. If you don't get it, it's probably because they don't want you to.

It's also important to consider a company's industry: customer base, market share among firms,
industry-wide growth, competition, regulation, and business cycles. Learning about how the
industry works will give an investor a deeper understanding of a company's financial health.

Quantitative Fundamentals to Consider

Financial statements are the medium by which a company discloses information concerning its
financial performance. Followers of fundamental analysis use quantitative information gleaned
from financial statements to make investment decisions. The three most important financial
statements are income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.

The Balance Sheet

The balance sheet represents a record of a company's assets, liabilities and equity at a particular
point in time. The balance sheet is named by the fact that a business's financial structure balances
in the following manner:

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders\' Equity

Assets represent the resources that the business owns or controls at a given point in time. This
includes items such as cash, inventory, machinery and buildings. The other side of the equation
represents the total value of the financing the company has used to acquire those assets.
Financing comes as a result of liabilities or equity. Liabilities represent debt (which of course
must be paid back), while equity represents the total value of money that the owners have
contributed to the business - including retained earnings, which is the profit made in previous
years.

The Income Statement

While the balance sheet takes a snapshot approach in examining a business, the income
statement measures a company's performance over a specific time frame. Technically, you could
have a balance sheet for a month or even a day, but you'll only see public companies report
quarterly and annually.

The income statement presents information about revenues, expenses and profit that was
generated as a result of the business' operations for that period.

Statement of Cash Flows

The statement of cash flows represents a record of a business' cash inflows and outflows over a
period of time. Typically, a statement of cash flows focuses on the following cash-related
activities:

 Cash from investing (CFI): Cash used for investing in assets, as well as the proceeds from
the sale of other businesses, equipment or long-term assets
 Cash from financing (CFF): Cash paid or received from the issuing and borrowing of
funds
 Operating Cash Flow (OCF): Cash generated from day-to-day business operations

The cash flow statement is important because it's very difficult for a business to manipulate its
cash situation. There is plenty that aggressive accountants can do to manipulate earnings, but it's
tough to fake cash in the bank. For this reason, some investors use the cash flow statement as a
more conservative measure of a company's performance.
The Concept of Intrinsic Value
One of the primary assumptions of fundamental analysis is that the currently price from the stock
market often does not fully reflect a value of the company supported by the publicly available
data. A second assumption is that the value reflected from the company's fundamental data is
more likely to be closer to a true value of the stock.

Analysts often refer to this hypothetical true value as the intrinsic value. However, it should be
noted that this usage of the phrase intrinsic value means something different in stock valuation
than what it means in other contexts such as options trading. Option pricing uses a standard
calculation for intrinsic value, however analysts use a various complex models to arrive at their
intrinsic value for a stock. There is not a single, generally accepted formula for arriving at the
intrinsic value of a stock.

For example, say that a company's stock was trading at $20, and after extensive research on the
company, an analyst determines that it ought to be worth $24. Another analyst does equal
research but determines that it ought to be worth $26. Many investors will consider the average
of such estimates and assume that intrinsic value of the stock may be near $25. Often investors
consider these estimates highly relevant information because they want to buy stocks that are
trading at prices significantly below these intrinsic values.

This leads to a third major assumption of fundamental analysis: In the long run, the stock market
will reflect the fundamentals. The problem is, nobody knows how long "the long run" really is. It
could be days or years.

This is what fundamental analysis is all about. By focusing on a particular business, an investor
can estimate the intrinsic value of a firm and find opportunities to buy at a discount. The
investment will pay off when the market catches up to the fundamentals.

One of the most famous and successful fundamental analysts is the so-called "Oracle of
Omaha," Warren Buffett, who champions the technique in picking stocks.

Criticisms of Fundamental Analysis

The biggest criticisms of fundamental analysis come primarily from two groups: proponents
of technical analysis and believers of the efficient market hypothesis.

Technical Analysis
Technical analysis is the other primary form of security analysis. Put simply, technical analysts
base their investments (or, more precisely, their trades) solely on the price and volume
movements of stocks. Using charts and other tools, they trade on momentum and ignore the
fundamentals.

One of the basic tenets of technical analysis is that the market discounts everything. All news
about a company is already priced into the stock. Therefore, the stock's price movements give
more insight than the underlying fundamentals of the business itself.
The Efficient Market Hypothesis
Followers of the efficient market hypothesis, however, are usually in disagreement with both
fundamental and technical analysts.

The efficient market hypothesis contends that it is essentially impossible to beat the market
through either fundamental or technical analysis. Since the market efficiently prices all stocks on
an ongoing basis, any opportunities for excess returns are almost immediately whittled away by
the market's many participants, making it impossible for anyone to meaningfully outperform the
market over the long term.

Examples of Fundamental Analysis

Take the Coca-Cola Company, for example. When examining its stock, an analyst must look at
the stock's annual dividend payout, earnings per share, P/E ratio, and many other quantitative
factors. However, no analysis of Coca-Cola is complete without taking into account its brand
recognition. Anybody can start a company that sells sugar and water, but few companies are
known to billions of people. It's tough to put a finger on exactly what the Coke brand is worth,
but you can be sure that it's an essential ingredient contributing to the company's ongoing
success.

Even the market as a whole can be evaluated using fundamental analysis. For example, analysts
looked at fundamental indicators of the S&P 500 from July 4 to July 8, 2016. During this time,
the S&P rose to 2129.90 after the release of a positive jobs' report in the United States. In fact,
the market just missed a new record high, coming in just under the May 2015 high of 2132.80.
The economic surprise of an additional 287,000 jobs for the month of June specifically increased
the value of the stock market on July 8, 2016.

However, there are differing views on the market's true value. Some analysts believe the
economy is heading for a bear market, while other analysts believe it will continue as a bull
market.