94 ShowMetheMoney
some of the original cost has to be matche dagainst revenues. A
portion of the amount has to be sprea dout over the next several
years even though you expended it all at one time. Accountants call
that depreciation. I’ll bet you never figured that in your calculation
of profits.”
“I’ll bet you’re right,” he replied. “Tell me more.”
“I also went back into the books for a few years an dsaw that in
some years the tree produced fewer apples than it did in other years,
the prices varied, and the costs were not exactly the same each year.
Taking an average of only the last three years, I came up with a
figure of $45 as a fair sample of the tree’s earnings. But that is only
half of what we have to do to figure the value.”
“What’s the other half?” he asked.
“The tricky part,” she tol dhim. “We now have to figure the value
to me of owning a tree that will produce average annual earnings of
$45 a year. If I believe dthat the tree was a ‘one-year won der,’ I woul d
say 100% of its value—as a going business—was represente dby one
year’s earnings.”
“But if we agree that the tree is more like a corporation in that
it will continue to produce earnings year after year, the key is to
figure out an appropriate rate of return. In other words, I will be
investing my capital in the tree, an dI nee dto compute the value to
me of an investment that will produce $45 a year in income. We can
call that amount the capitalize dvalue of the tree.”
“Do you have something in mind?” he asked.
“I’m getting there. If this tree produced entirely steady and pre-
dictable earnings each year, it would be like a U.S. Treasury bond.
But its earnings are not guaranteed, so we have to take into account
risks an duncertainty. If the risk of its ruin was high, I woul dinsist
that a single year’s earnings represent a higher percentage of the
value of the tree. After all, apples coul dbecome a glut on the market
one day an dyou woul dhave to cut the price, thus increasing the
costs of selling them.”
“Or,” she continued, “some doctor could discover a link between
eating an apple a day and heart disease. A drought could cut the
yiel dof the tree. Or the tree coul dbecome disease dan d die. These
are all risks. An dwe don’t even know whether the costs we are sure
to incur will be worth incurring.”
“You are a gloomy one,” reflecte dthe ol dman. “There coul dalso
be a shortage of apples on the market, an dthe price of apples coul d
rise. If you think about it, it is even possible that I have been selling