It's been a while since I've taken a valuation class. However it strikes me as odd that you would "simply need to adjust your financial model" to get a proper value out of the company. Intangible assets are not prescribed a book value. Companies that overpay (e.g. "goodwill") for acquisitions have a place to put that. I'd be curious what the goodwill looks like on these major companies. Maybe I'll look into it later. I would imagine though that the goodwill on the balance sheet has skyrocketed as a result of questionable purchases by large companies. These intangibles aren't easily liquidated, so if a company goes under it's really anyone's guess what the real value will be. Book value has utility because it pins a relatively strictly defined number to the amount of value you'd expect if the company went under tomorrow. If you throw intangible assets into that it would appear to me "eleventy billion dollars" is an accurate valuation in today's day in age for any company whatsoever.
Gaussian...Indeed. And its a vicious cycle. As a company's stock becomes hyped and over priced, they are more apt to over pay using their over valued stock as currency such as Nvida just did with Arm Holdings. The most outrageous example of this was when AOL's stock was so amazingly high, they were able to buy Time Warner. AOL's own goodwill at the time was 90 percent of the stock price valuation. Once AOL's goodwill vanished with the bubble, Time Warner just placed AOL in the basement as a very small subsidiary.
%% That article made some good points. NOT that ''value investing is dead'' LOL. Its that growth stocks/ETFs have outperformed for so many decades...……………………………………………………………………………...Besides, there are a very few value investors that do outperform/big. AOL, I remember , started having lousy customer service/a real killer in business.