It also shows a similar story for Tobin's q, the preferred measure of Andrew Smithers, who runs an eponymous London research firm.

ECONOMIST: A survey of global equity markets: Valuation waltz | The

So the oil-services companies devised techniques (such as the Q-Fin system from WesternGeco and the Nautilus system from CGGVeritas) to measure and adjust the position of the streamers as they travel through the water.

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And there is Tobin's q, a ratio of the stockmarket value to the replacement cost of its tangible assets an attempt to measure what it would cost to recreate a company from scratch.

ECONOMIST: A survey of global equity markets: Valuation waltz | The