A crisis as crucible - A masterclass and Q&A with Aswath Damodaran

A special live masterclass and Q&A with Prof. Aswath Damodaran of NYU, known for his global thought leadership on valuation.

A Crisis as Crucible: COVID Lessons Learned, Unlearned and Relearned
In every crisis, three things happen. First, you lose perspective, lost in the weeds as you try to understand what is happening on a day-to-day basis. Second, you lose faith in everything that you thought you knew, as you are confronted with the unusual and uncommon. Third, you outsource your thinking, and look to experts to tell you what to do. In this session, I talk about the lessons I have learned during this crisis about markets (they are not as chaotic as they look), about fundamentals (they matter more than ever), about smart money (there is no such thing) and the importance of story telling. I hope that the session, rather than giving you my answers to your questions, gives you a framework for finding the answers on your own."

We are grateful to Class of 2021 students Aakash Chinoy and Samarth Mehta for taking the initiative to organize this and we are delighted to support this student-led initiative.

The session is structured as a 45 minute masterclass and a 45 minute question and answer session. The slides used in the master class are available here: http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/...

The Q&A is moderated by Class of 2005 alumnus Harish Krishnan, EVP and senior fund manager at Kotak Mahindra AMC. Time stamps for the questions:
48:00 - On reverse DCF and the assumptions that markets are already pricing in
52:18 - On whether younger companies have better odds of benefiting from the disruption than older companies
59:00 - Do companies prefer being unlisted for longer?
1:03:50 – Perhaps one of the largest bubbles is the bond market with yields falling continuously, what does endgame for all the piling debt look like?
1:08:40 –Is the yield on AAA-rated bonds unsustainable right now in 2020?
1:12:00 – Corporate bond yield and S&P500 dividend yield are almost at parity, is one of the asset class mispriced?
1:15:32 – Is there a framework to evaluate selling strategies?
1:19:20 – Is ESG a buzz word? https://www.ft.com/content/719e6253-4...
1:25:20 – Is there a philosophical bent to valuation to draw life lessons from?
1:27:15 – When did you develop the confidence to put your views fearlessly?
1:33:00 – Advice to your student self as you graduated from IIM in ‘79?