Cheshire Cat quotes which I like

Cheshire Cat "`Cheshire Puss,' [Alice] began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'"

"`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on `And how do you know that you're mad?'
`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?'
`I suppose so,' said Alice.
`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'"

Source: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/school/cheshire-cat.html

How to value company with negative cash flows:

First of all why would you like to select the company having negative cash flows consistently (here I am assuming consistently means for duration of 3-5 years). It’s better to ignore them.

However, we can segregate them in 2 categories:

The newly established companies like Linked in, which does not have positive cash flows

The perennial loss making company like MTNL which has negative cash flows due to high fixed cost and are unable to recover them

Valuation will differ depending on the above types:

For the first type of company, ideally DCF should be used, but it is difficult to look in the future. Another thing which can be done is you estimate eps for next few years and multiply it by PE (general estimate), and then you discount the price by the discounting rate (a hurdle rate).

Other option is just valuing the company on tangible assets

2nd type of company:

No point of valuing it :) I wouldn’t. However if you want, you can value it on basis of liquidation value

It requires tremendous patience to get the correct appraisal from the market for these companies

Running away

I want to run away from myself....Why??? To find myself!