Company analysis
A sales increase can come from selling more, buying a business or translating foreign earnings into euros. Only the first of those necessarily says anything about demand for the existing business.
MORGANS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
Perspectives with substance.
Source-based case studies and fundamentals on companies, monetary policy, valuation and risk.
MCM Research
30 analyses and case studies
Examine a company, a policy decision or an industry in detail. Each article works through a research question and explains where the evidence stops.
Monetary policy
The decision of 5 June 2025 shows why the date of a policy announcement, the first reset on a loan and the first change in a borrower’s cash flow can be months apart.
Industry
A subscription provider and a project contractor can report the same revenue and still need very different amounts of financing. The difference lies in who pays first and what must happen before the next invoice.
Company analysis
Operating cash flow measures cash generated by operating activities. It does not answer how much a business can distribute while maintaining its productive capacity.
Risk
A portfolio can contain manufacturers, banks and property businesses yet depend on one outcome: households retaining access to affordable credit. Counting securities will not reveal that common exposure.
Valuation
The last line of a discounted cash-flow model can matter more than its first five years. Its growth assumption is credible only if the business can finance the investment needed to deliver it.
Industry
An extra month of inventory can be a deliberate buffer against supply disruption or an early sign of discounting. Age, expected selling price and the cost of completing a sale distinguish the two.
Valuation
A warehouse does not become more profitable because its rent is presented differently. Yet a data screen can show a different enterprise-value multiple even though the tenant signs no new contract.
Industry
Backlog is a stock at a date; bookings are a flow during a period. A factory can record fewer new orders and still finish the quarter with more work on its books if deliveries slow even further.
Risk
The promised pension payment can stay the same while its present value changes materially. Separate the obligation, the assets set aside to pay it and the cash contributions the employer is due to make.
Industry
Capacity utilisation matters most when it can be connected to shipment volumes, labour hours and the cost of keeping a plant open.
Risk
The customer’s address is a poor guide to currency exposure. Start with the invoice currency and the date on which cash changes hands.
Industry
An industrial buyer pays for more than electricity itself. The margin effect depends on its tariff, its load and the date its supply contract resets.
Industry
On a cross-border route, the costliest delay can occur after the train has finished the longest part of its journey.
Data & methods
Permits, starts and completions describe different stages of a project. Each matters to a different supplier and belongs on a different time line.
Industry
A booked order measures a commitment. A shipment records delivery. The gap is informative only after price, cancellations and the outstanding order book have been checked.
Risk
A diversion can tie up cash even when the freight price is fixed. The first question is who finances the goods while they are afloat.
Industry
The same semiconductor can appear as finished goods at a chipmaker, stock at a distributor or a component waiting for assembly. Each observation answers a different question.
Data & methods
The August 2026 industrial production tables contain two different answers for Germany. Both are correct because their comparison periods differ.
Monetary policy
Banks can tighten their criteria and still report more credit outstanding. To reconcile the signals, separate the lending decision from the use of facilities already in place.
Data & methods
A backtest of an economic signal has two dates: the quarter being measured and the day the estimate could first have influenced a decision. Confusing them lets a model see the future.
Data & methods
A change in the annual inflation rate can come from today’s prices, last year’s comparison or the spending weights. Each tells a different story about household demand.
Data & methods
Two defensible adjustment procedures can produce different totals from identical raw observations. The sequence matters when an analyst attributes a monthly movement to a particular industry.
Industry
A plant’s bill combines how much it produces, the energy required per unit and the effective price it pays. Isolating all three helps assess whether a reported saving is repeatable.
Company analysis
A customer can pay in full before the retailer knows which items will stay sold. A returns analysis follows three clocks: payment, the refund obligation and the goods’ return to saleable stock.
Valuation
A bridge can create time savings for travellers and toll income for its operator. Both arrive in the future, but they belong to different appraisals and do not warrant the same discount rate.
Risk
Two banks can have the same share of deposit funding yet show very different earnings responses to a rate change. The missing variables are the timing and extent of repricing on both sides of the balance sheet.
Company analysis
A rising earnings-per-share figure can reflect more earnings, fewer shares or both. A useful bridge reconstructs the reported denominator and then asks how the change in capital structure was financed.
Industry
A falling quoted metal price can squeeze margins before or after the physical inventory changes. For a fabricator applying ordinary IAS 2 cost accounting, two separate questions govern the outcome.
Data & methods
A border crossing identifies a shipment. It does not tell us which economy generated all its value or which country ultimately consumed it. Three measures answer three different questions.
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