What Does Intrinsic Value Mean?
The goal of this post is to find a layman's idea of what a stock's "intrinsic value" means. Intrinsic value is often praised as a claim to why the market price of company should be higher. What does that mean?
Checking Investopedia, the top hit on Google, "There is no universal standard for calculating the intrinsic value of a company... Typically, investors try to use both qualitative and quantitative to measure the intrinsic value of a company, but investors should keep in mind that the result is still only an estimate." - Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrinsicvalue.asp
The next hit, Corporate Finance Institute offers a "Net Present Value" based formula, along with net cash flow, interest rate, etc. So it seems that the mathematics of instrinsic value calculation are sound, but the weighting of possible future outcomes is where an an analyst is more of an artist. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/valuation/intrinsic-value-guide/
In essence, intrinsic value is a mathematical model an analyst creates by weighing projected outcomes. There is no standard for producing an intrinsic valuation of a company. I find this somewhat amusing, because before when I heard the term intrinsic valuation, I assumed there was more to it. Such as a formal methodology that is carried out. However, like all future prediction models, they are subjective and sound more like a guess to me. I will be sure to take these instrinsic value calculations with a grain of salt from now on.