Damodaran Online: free industry data on margins, betas and multiples
NYU Stern professor Aswath Damodaran publishes yearly industry datasets on cost of capital, betas, margins, multiples and risk premiums, free to download.
The site: Damodaran Online (NYU Stern). Cost: Free. Useful for: finance and markets.
What it is
Aswath Damodaran is a professor of finance at NYU Stern School of Business, known for his work on valuation. On his site, Damodaran Online, he publishes industry-level datasets: costs of capital, levered and unlevered betas, operating and net margins, PE and PEG ratios, price and enterprise value multiples, the implied equity risk premium for the US, and risk premiums for other markets based on Moody’s country ratings.
The data is split by region, including the US, Europe, Japan, emerging markets with China and India subsets, and a global set. The page says the data is updated once a year, in the first two weeks of January. Most files are Excel downloads, and current US data is also offered as web pages.
Use it for
- Sanity-checking a margin or growth assumption against an industry average
- Finding a beta or cost of capital for a discounted cash flow model
- Comparing valuation multiples across industries
- Adding a country risk premium when valuing a business in an emerging market
It is widely used by students and practitioners because it puts industry benchmarks, which usually sit behind expensive data terminals, on a public web page.
How to use it
- Open the current data page on Damodaran Online.
- Pick the section you need, such as margins, multiples or cost of capital.
- Choose the region that matches your company, such as Europe or emerging markets.
- Download the Excel file, or open the web version for US data.
- Find your industry row and read the definitions in the file before using a figure.
Use the archived data as well as the current year. Seeing how an industry average has moved over several years tells you more than one snapshot.
Example
A founder building a valuation for a European software business can download the European margins and cost of capital files. The software industry rows give an average operating margin and cost of capital to compare with the plan’s own assumptions, and any large gap needs an explanation.
Watch out for
- These are industry averages, so a single company can differ widely.
- Company-level data is no longer shared; the site says data services no longer allow it.
- Data is refreshed once a year, so figures can be nearly a year old by December.
It works well alongside FRED, Macrotrends and Investor relations pages and annual reports.
Checklist
Put it to work
Recap cards
Tap a card to check yourself.
Sources and credits
