Intangible Value
Critical Finance Review, 2022, 11(2): pp. 299-332
67 Pages Posted: 31 Dec 2020 Last revised: 6 Jun 2022
There are 2 versions of this paper
Intangible Value
Intangible Value
Date Written: October 28, 2020
Abstract
Intangible assets are absent from traditional measures of value despite their growing importance in firms' capital stocks. We propose a simple improvement to the classic Fama and French (1992, 1993) value factor that incorporates intangibles and addresses differences in accounting practices across industries. Our intangible value factor prices assets as well as or better than the traditional value factor but yields substantially higher returns. This outperformance holds over the entire sample period, including in more recent decades during which value has underperformed. We show that the intangible value factor sorts more effectively within industries on productivity, profitability, financial soundness, and on other valuation ratios such as price-to-earnings.
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Keywords: Value investing, value factor, intangible assets, intangible capital
JEL Classification: G1, G10, G11, E22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation