Weighted Average Cost of Capital
The Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) is used in finance to measure a firm's cost of capital.
The total capital for a firm is the value of its equity (for a firm without outstanding warrants and options, this is the same as the company's market capitalization) plus the cost of its debt (the cost of debt should be continually updated as the cost of debt changes as a result of interest rate changes). Notice that the "equity" in the debt to equity ratio is the market value of all equity, not the shareholders' equity on the balance sheet.To calculate the firm’s weighted cost of capital, we must first calculate the costs of the individual financing sources: Cost of Debt, Cost of Preference Capital and Cost of Equity Cap..
Calculation of WACC is an iterative procedure which requires estimation of the fair market value of equity capital.
Read more about this topic: Cost Of Capital
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