Discounted Cash Flow vs. Non-Discounted Methods in Investment Decisions
Discounted Cash Flow vs. Non-Discounted Methods in Investment Decisions Introduction The appraisal of investment projects is a key task in corporate finance and capital budgeting that decides how well a company can grow and maintain its operations in the long run. Companies regularly encounter situations in which they must spend large amounts of capital on items such as a new product line, new facility or another acquisition. It is important to make good investing choices in order to earn profit and outperform the competition. A range of capital budgeting techniques is used by analysts and financial managers to evaluate whether such projects can be financed. The methods are mainly divided into Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) techniques and non-Discounted techniques. Valuation methods of both kinds use their own base beliefs about what determines the potential return, even if they aim to assess the same thing. A key driver of the difference is the approach to the time value of money whic...