"Surely a company can only be valued twice yearly when its...

"Surely a company can only be valued twice yearly when its financial statements are released."

A valuation simply constitutes an opinion about what a business is worth, to you as a buyer. There are many things that will feed into that opinion. For example, for a going concern with an expectation of a long future, the valuation may be most crucially dependent on what may eventuate long into the future. Key factors here may include (though not exclusively):

• my expectation of current earnings power
• my expectation of earnings growth
• the above may be influenced by my expectation of industry growth and changes in market-share
• my expectation of capital to be acquired, and capital structure going forward
• my expectation of future returns on capital and dividend payout ratio
• my desired rate of return, which may be influenced by my expectation of future interest rates
• my expectation of industry trends, including technological disruption, obsolescence, demographics, substitutes etc etc
• my expectation of how predictable the future is, in the relevant company and industry
• my assessment of the durability of the business, based on its products and services, as well as the reliability of the management
• my assessment of the durability of the business based on its current competitive strength (or lack of)
• my expectation of how durable this competitive strength (or lack of) might be
• my assessment of current, and expectation of future, financial strength

And the list goes on.

Clearly the annual reports will be one of the most crucial inputs into the above, however there could be all sorts of relevant inputs (industry specific, economic, business specific etc etc). These inputs can become apparent at any time. I could have a dream one night and realize that I've missed, or misunderstood, a crucial piece of the puzzle (not that ever have)!