Fundamental valuation of a stock

The following diagram summarizes the components of valuating a stock fundamentally. While most of us just concentrate on the Income statement, there is a need to go one level down and understand what influences those sub-components and their trajectory.

The difficult part is in guaging the P/E multiple. Whatever numbers we come up with for earnings growth rate are just estimates as we are trying to predict the future. We need to understand the company, its products, competitors, new developments in the sector etc. to get a reasonable estimate.

If we stick to the companies whose business we understand better, this valuation exercise might become a possible task and help us know if the stock is reasonably valued or is it under priced or otherwise. That will help us identify buying and selling ranges. These estimate ranges can be honed with experience. Rather than timing the market, if we focus on price levels, we might get lucky not just once but again and again as our portfolio performs better than market average.