There's required rate of return, discount rate, stock yield. All these terms have a lot in common and are key in investing, but how can I determine them when valuating a stock of a publicly traded company? There's a myriad of stock valuation methods I've read about -- DCF, CAPM, Gordon model, etc -- and almost all of them naturally involve some required rate of return or so it seems, since I'm not a pro at this. When I, as a potential investor, have an annual report in my hands of company XYZ that doesn't pay dividends,

1) what valuation model is most effective and
2) how do I come up with a helpful rate of return and using what variables?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. My question is NOT homework!

manik chand dey

1-what i feel, that for a non dividend paying company, it is better to use CAPM valuation model.One thing very much special about CAPM is that, it differentiates the total return into risk free and premium over and above the risk free rate. So you can justify yourself at a point, what is your maximum expected return, given the beta.