Most investment books try to assess the attractiveness of a stock price by estimating the value of the company. Expectations Investing provides a powerful and insightful alternative to identifying gaps between price and value. Michael J. Mauboussin and Alfred Rappaport suggest that an investor start with a known quantity, the stock price, and ask what it implies for future financial results. After showing how to read expectations, Mauboussin and Rappaport provide a guide to rigorous strategic and financial analysis to help investors assess the likelihood of revisions to these expectations. Their framework traces value creation from the triggers that shape a company's performance to the impact on the value drivers. This allows a practitioner of expectations investing to determine whether a stock is an attractive buy or sell candidate. Investors who read this book will be able to evaluate stocks of companies in any sector or geography more effectively than those who use the standard approaches of most investors. Managers can use the book's principles to devise, adjust, and communicate their company's strategy in light of shareholder expectations. This revised and updated edition reflects the many changes in accounting and the business landscape since the book was first published and provides a wealth of new examples and case studies.

The ultimate test of corporate strategy, the only reliable measure, is whether it creates economic value for shareholders. Now, in this substantially revised and updated edition of his 1986 business classic, Creating Shareholder Value, Alfred Rappaport provides managers and investors with the practical tools needed to generate superior returns. After a decade of downsizings frequently blamed on shareholder value decision making, this book presents a new and indepth assessment of the rationale for shareholder value. Further, Rappaport presents provocative new insights on shareholder value applications to: (1) business planning, (2) performance evaluation, (3) executive compensation, (4) mergers and acquisitions, (5) interpreting stock market signals, and (6) organizational implementation. Readers will be particularly interested in Rappaport's answers to three management performance evaluation questions: (1) What is the most appropriate measure of performance? (2) What is the most appropriate target level of performance? and (3) How should rewards be linked to performance? The recent acquisition of Duracell International by Gillette is analyzed in detail, enabling the reader to understand the critical information needed when assessing the risks and rewards of a merger from both sides of the negotiating table.

The shareholder value approach presented here has been widely embraced by publicly traded as well as privately held companies worldwide. Brilliant and incisive, this is the one book that should be required reading for managers and investors who want to stay on the cutting edge of success in a highly competitive global economy.

PRAISE FOR SAVING "CAPITALISM FROM SHORT TERMISM"

"As Rappaport keeps on speaking out for the realities surrounding investment and speculation, our society will profit as it builds on his keen insights."
--from the Foreword by John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group

"Al Rappaport brings insight and wisdom to the short-termism debate, fully demonstrating the way perverse incentives are undermining public companies and capital markets."
--John Plender, "Financial Times"

"In this rigorous, useful, and delightful book, Rappaport undresses short-term financial incentives for what they are: parasites that draw the value-creating innovation out of companies. And he shows how executives can align long-term value-creating investments with the right investors' expectations."
--Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School

"How to make managers focus on the long-run is one of the most consequential and difficult questions in corporate governance and is the subject of much debate and disagreement. Professor Alfred Rappaport's insightful book is a valuable contribution to this important debate."
--Lucian Bebchuk, Professor, Harvard Law School, and coauthor of "Pay Without Performance"

""Saving Capitalism from Short-Termism" insightfully exposes the contradictions by which we incentivize money managers to require short-term focus by company managers. Again and again in rereading this book, I am struck with the author's felicitous style in raising subject after subject in which I have long been interested--but, until this read, have not been able to resolve. Buy it, read it, and enjoy."
--Robert A.G. Monks, founder ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services), Lens Governance Advisors, and The Corporate Library

"Capitalism fails when corporate managers and professional investors prefer their own interests to those the true owners of businesses. In "Saving Capitalism from Short-Termism," Al Rappaport shows how new incentives schemes can deliver shareholder value for the 21st century."
--Edward Chancellor, author of "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation" and member of GMO's Asset Allocation team

About the Book

Business leaders today obsess over quarterly earnings and the current stock price--and for good reason. Corporate incentives typically focus on short-term profits rather than long-term value creation. Nothing is more harmful to businesses--and to the broader economy.

Few business thinkers in recent decades have contributed more to this subject than Alfred Rappaport. As an author and educator, Rappaport is a pioneer in developing the principles of values-based management and is an acknowledged authority on how to make long-term shareholder value the essential driver of corporate strategy. His latest work, "Saving Capitalism from Short-Termism," is a clarion call for conquering the addiction to short-term profit--and getting on the path to building long-term value.

Rappaport's solution to short-termism is simple but profound: business leaders must align the interests of corporate and investment managers with those of their shareholders and beneficiaries. His plan includes: Gaining the commitment of senior management and the board to long-term value creation as their governing objective Incentives that reward CEOs, operating-unit managers, and front-line employees for delivering superior long-term value A major overhaul of corporate financial reporting that provides more relevant and transparent information to investors and other financial statement users Performance fees that align the interests of investment managers and shareholders Actively managed funds with concentrated holdings and long investment horizons that tilt the odds in favor of better long-term shareholder returns

If corporate and investment leaders do not address the problem of short-termism, more financial crises may be in store--and they are likely to be more severe and broader than the meltdown in 2008.

The trade-off is clear: We can continue to pursue short-term profit at the expense of economic vitality, individual financial security, and perhaps even the dominance of the free-market system itself. Or we can take the responsible path outlined in this book and generate innovation, quality, growth, and value over the long term.