Subject: Re: OT: big companies
This is how I value high growth, high pace of innovation, entering new product categories companies ... by looking at the change in value, not the GAAP earnings. My January post from the Tesla board:

It's an interesting approach, for sure. I presume it works fine if the assumptions are good.

I think the only thing I would suggest is to remember that ultimately all of the things on your list exist for the sole purpose of creating greater profits down the road
for existing shareholders.

If a given line item is estimated to have increased the value of the firm by X% beyond what it was a year earlier, then it will have to have increased future owner earnings by X% in some fixed future year beyond what they would otherwise have been.
If the value-gain estimates you've done are all individually consistent with that conclusion, go for it.

As has been beaten to death, current P/E means very little.
But the future earnings mean everything.

Personally, I find it easier to work backwards from the current price: is it low enough to offer a decent return?
It's unwise to assume that any equity security can be sold at a multiple of more then 20 times cyclically adjusted owner earnings far in the future (a decade or more, say).
It can happen, but when it does it's luck, not prudent prescience.
And I'm not interested in anything that doesn't get me a return of (say) inflation + 6.5%/year with some confidence, since that's about the average return from the average US stock in the average year.
Putting those two together, you can figure out what it would take for any stock to be a good deal at its current price.
It's simply a matter of assessing whether it's sufficiently plausible that they'll make enough money to manage the required outcome at a far future multiple no more than 20.
For example, with Tesla stock at $265 today, it's simply a matter of estimating whether one can see a pretty plausible path to owner earnings of (say) $22 in 8 years, in today's money.
$265 * 1.065^8 / 20 = about $28. If you prefer 12 years out, it would required owner earnings of around $28 in today's money.

If your assessment of the business prospects in the next many years is that they can manage that profit or more with confidence, the stock is not overpriced.
Some current estimates for 2030 EPS at Tesla are about $11, which wouldn't do it. Other estimates are $100, which would definitely do it.

The nice thing about working backwards is that as soon as you have the answer to "am I confident the future earnings be more than $22" (or whatever the number is), you can stop worrying about the details too much.
Anything more is just icing on top, and it doesn't matter precisely how thick the icing is.

Jim