This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

What's Intangible?

Assets are assets, correct? Factories, land, and other physical things are the first things that almost universally come to mind when people begin to talk about assets, but that only reveals part of the situation. Assets tie into what a firm is worth, and help determine stock price, market capitalization, and earnings potential, but assets are a lot more than simply the physical assets that you and I can see. Intangible assets are often time worth more than the physical assets they are related to -- intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, patents), as well as value related to brand strength can be worth tens of billions of dollars.

 

Intangible assets bring many questions with the rise in their usage. Intangible assets account for larger percentages of many firms' assets and valuations than the traditional brick-and-mortar assets do. This a reflection of several factors, but some of the most prominent factors include the transitioning of the U.S. economy from a manufacturing-based economy (although the manufacturing sector, as currently constituted, would still rank among one of the world's largest economies in terms of GDP) to a services-based economy, and the increasing value of "soft assets" such as software, brand names, and patents/copyrights/trademarks.

Find out what's happening in River Dellwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Italy has actually accused S&P of not taking these intangible assets into account when the credit agency evaluated the Italian economy.

Find out what's happening in River Dellwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Happy Reading!

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?