The stock market and competitive analysis

Abstract

A method is presented for analysing the stock market's implicit assessment of relative strategic position in an industry. The market's overall perception of strategic position is obtained by comparing the value of future growth potential to that of the existing earnings stream for each company. More detail is extracted by using the quality and quantity of future growth, implicit in the relative value of future growth, as a measure of competitive position and product market outlook respectively. The method is applied to a sample of firms from the computer and data processing industry.