How much taxi drivers make

I did a post on taxis in NYC and that inspired this post. So here is how much money taxi drivers make in different cities across the globe.

NYC

Uber - $90,000 per year

Yellow Cab - $32,000 per year

Source: CNBC

Colombo

Tuk tuk – 30,000 LKR per month (Source: Indi)

Uber – 100,000 LKR per month (Source: Medium)

Chennai

Ola/Uber – 30,470 INR per month

Source: Quora

How many taxis in NYC?

There are just over 13,500 taxis on the streets of NYC. The black cars now dominate the scene in New York with a size of 60,000. More than 46,000 of these black cars are connected with Uber. So the iconic yellow cab must be a pretty rare sight. All of these tuk tuks coming one after the other in Colombo, got me thinking about the number of yellow cabs in New York City. There are 1.2 million tuk tuks in Sri Lanka (this is the popular number listed everywhere), but I couldn’t get a figure for Colombo. It must be a pretty high figure. If you look at Chennai, there were just about 72,000 autorickshaws, according to a recent article on The Hindu. Chennai is 10 times the size of Colombo, but I still see autorickshaws zipping past whenever I go for a visit. 

Workers can't afford products they make

A Foxconn worker makes $1.78 per hour he or she is on the line. For a month, this works out to $290. The company deducts $72 for the small dorm room and meals offered by them. This leaves them with some money just north of $200. A large chunk is sent home to their villages. If they were to be selfish and spend on nothing else, it would take six months for them to buy an iPhone.

There is a piece by Business Insider on the amount of work done by the employees and the nature of it.

Bottomline: Foxconn workers don’t own iPhones, in general. 

How many cars are there in the world?

There are 1.02 billion cars in the world. This number is expected to double by 2040. Still, having a car is a luxury that most people in the world cannot afford. I have a driving license, but I am not the type of person who likes to drive. I can’t wait for the time when self-driving cars become a common sight on the roads. Then I’ll be able to afford one.

My father kept asking me whether I needed a car, but I preferred to ask him for that money to start a business. I’ve been looking at the various costs of having a car and whether it is worth saving for something that will depreciate so much and be worth next to nothing in ten years. There is the cost of acquisition and then maintenance, insurance and the gasoline. According to Consumer Expenditures in 2016, released in August of 2017 by the U.S. Department of Labor's U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average vehicle costs $8,003 per year to own and operate.

Personally, I feel that I could spend some money on a nice car, just one car for the whole household. So if I had a wife and two kids, we would all have one car for the four of us. 

The Life of the Five-Thousand Rupee Note

I was wondering how long the 5000 rupee note would last. So I researched the $100 bill as it is the note equivalent to the Sri Lankan five-thousand one. There is very little data on Sri Lanka and so I always have to look up the stuff in India or the US to get a rough idea. The Washington Post reports that the $100 bill is built to last with an estimated “life span” of 15 years.

The Fed has something to say on the topic too. It has estimated life spans of the $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes. It states that the larger denominations are used as a store of value and so they pass between users at a much lower frequency. 

The Price-To-Book Ratio is a Top Tool To Evaluate Companies

Once again you will be looking for a low value for the price to book value as it will indicate that a stock is undervalued. This is more desirable. Growth investors increasingly make use of this metric to identify the best stocks to invest in.

The book value of equity is defined as the value of company's assets as shown on the balance sheet. It is the difference between the book value of assets and the book value of liabilities.

Let us look at an example. If company XYZ has $300 million in assets and $100 million in liabilities, then the book value for this particular company would be $200 million. If there are 20 million shares outstanding, then each share would represent $10 of book value. If the market price for a share is currently $25, then the P/B ratio would be 2.5 (25/10).

Be wary of companies that are trading for less than their book value. Also, investors should steer away from stocks with a P/B less than one. It signifies that the asset value is overstated and the firm is earning a dismal return on its assets.

The best companies are those that have a high stock price relative to their book value. They are earning a high return on their assets. When looking at P/B, pay close attention to the ROE as well. A low ROE in comparison to the P/B can be problematic.

Book values tend to get distorted. Share buybacks have an effect on the P/B as the capital gets reduced on the balance sheet. In addition, the book value plunges when cash is made use of to fund a capital expenditure for instance.

In the end, the P/B ratio offers a reality check for an investor and a valuable one at that. The issue with P/B is that it ignores intangible assets like brand value, intellectual property, goodwill and patents. Companies like Microsoft are renowned for their significant intellectual property in comparison to physical property and this ratio does not capture that aspect.

her over the long term.

Priceline Group Offers Deep Value For Many Years To Come

When skimming for value stocks, Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) undoubtedly catches the eye. Stock analysts have coveted this stock for several years and now they are predicting that the online travel stock will post an earnings per share of $57.73. Priceline's brands are Booking.com, agoda.com, KAYAK, OpenTable and rentalcars.com. OpenTable is a recent acquisition by the Priceline Group for $2.6 billion. The company's CEO Darren Huston commented that this purchase would enhance the booking experience for Priceline's global customers.

With a PEG ratio of 1.08, Priceline is undervalued relative to its high-growth potential. While the best value stocks generally have PEG values below 1.0, we can make an exception for Priceline given its massive size and immense reach. Furthermore, the PEG ratio is lower for Priceline in comparison to Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) and Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE:OWW). Additionally, TripAdvisor, Inc (NASDAQ: TRIP) has a reported PEG value of 2.53. So you can definitely see that you can't go wrong with PCLN as you are paying much less for future earnings growth.

The P/E ratio tells a similar story as far as the attractiveness of Priceline is concerned. The 2015 estimate is 20.13 and it is the lowest value when comparing with industry peers. Going forward, Priceline.com continues to be expected to trade an attractive P/E a lot lower than its competitors. Expedia trades at a much higher P/E at 33.47 and will continue to be quite expensive in the estimates for the next two years. Value investors tend to pick the stocks with the lower P/Es in a particular industry. So this metric also makes PCLN look good.

While Wall Street remains fairly cautious on PCLN, it may be time to buy some shares. Most of the analysts' concern centers on increased competition in form of the Expedia Inc. - its chief rival. However, given the stock's attractive valuation multiples and robust fundamental performance, I am inclined to believe that Priceline shares are only going to keep surging higher over the long term.