FINA 361

Sunk Cost

A cost that has already been incurred and thus cannot be recovered. A sunk cost differs from other, future costs that a business may face, such as inventory costs or R&D expenses, because it has already happened. Sunk costs are independent of any event that may occur in the future. When making business or investment decisions, individuals and organizations typically look at the future costs that they may incur, by following a certain strategy. A company that has spent $5 million building a factory that is not yet complete, has to consider the $5 million sunk, since it cannot get the money back. It must decide whether continuing construction to complete the project will help the company regain the sunk cost, or whether it should walk away from the incomplete project.

Incremental Cash Flows

Cash flows that will occur if and only if some specific event occurs. In capital budgeting, the event is the firm's acceptance of a project and the project's incremental cash flows are ones that occur as a result of this decision. Cash flows such as investments in buildings, equipment, and working capital needed for the project are obviously incremental, as are sales revenues and operating costs associated with the project.

incremental Costs

Incremental costs Is the increase in total costs resulting from an increase in production or other activity. For instance, if a company's total costs increase from $320,000 to $360,000 as the result of increasing its machine hours from 8,000 to 10,000, the incremental cost of the 2,000 machine hours is $40,000. The incremental cost is also referred to as the differential cost. The incremental cost is the relevant cost for making a short run decision between two alternatives.

Opportunity Cost

The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action. The difference in return between a chosen investment and one that is necessarily passed up. Say you invest in a stock and it returns a paltry 2% over the year. In placing your money in the stock, you gave up the opportunity of another investment - say, a risk-free government bond yielding 6%. In this situation, your opportunity costs are 4% (6% - 2%).

Accumulated Depreciation

The cumulative depreciation of an asset up to a single point in its life. Regardless of the method used to calculate it, the depreciation of an asset during a single period is added to the previous period's accumulated depreciation to get the current accumulated depreciation. An asset's carrying value on the balance sheet is the difference between its purchase price and accumulated depreciation.

Salvage Value

The estimated value that an asset will realize upon its sale at the end of its useful life. The value is used in accounting to determine depreciation amounts and in the tax system to determine deductions. The salvage value is used in conjunction with the purchase price and accounting method to determine the amount by which an asset depreciates each period. For example, with a straight-line basis, an asset that cost $5,000 and has a salvage value of $1,000 and a useful life of five years would be depreciated at $800 ($5,000-$1,000/5 years) each year.

Payback Period

The length of time required to recover the cost of an investment. The payback period of a given investment or project is an important determinant of whether to undertake the position or project, as longer payback periods are typically not desirable for investment positions. Payback Period = Cost of Project / Annual Cash Inflows All other things being equal, the better investment is the one with the shorter payback period. For example, if a project costs $100,000 and is expected to return $20,000 annually, the payback period will be $100,000/$20,000, or five years. There are two main problems with the payback period method:1. It ignores any benefits that occur after the payback period and, therefore, does not measure profitability.

Difference between Modified Internal Rate of Return (MIRR) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

While the internal rate of return (IRR) assumes the cash flows from a project are reinvested at the IRR, the modified IRR assumes that positive cash flows are reinvested at the firm's cost of capital, and the initial outlays are financed at the firm's financing cost. Therefore, MIRR more accurately reflects the cost and profitability of a project. IRR A metric used in capital budgeting measuring the profitability of potential investments. Internal rate of return is a discount rate that makes the net present value (NPV) of all cash flows from a particular project equal to zero. IRR calculations rely on the same formula as NPV does.

Net Present Value (NPV)

the difference between the present value of cash inflows and the present value of cash outflows. NPV is used in capital budgeting to analyze the profitability of a projected investment or project. A positive net present value indicates that the projected earnings generated by a project or investment (in present dollars) exceeds the anticipated costs (also in present dollars). Generally, an investment with a positive NPV will be a profitable one and one with a negative NPV will result in a net loss.