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The article discusses valuing shares of solar-equipment leasing company SolarCity. The company itself calculates a metric it calls retained value, which in the author's view makes some unusually optimistic assumptions including the belief that 90% of the firm's customers will renew their equipment leases. He also says that while the company's approach to valuation uses a 6% discount rate, a more reasonable rate would be 10%.

The article discusses the current and predicted valuation for electric-automobile producer Tesla Motors. Between April and late October of 2013 Tesla's share price has risen more than 200%. The author cites the case of online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to illustrate how inaccurate valuations derived from the discounted-cash-flow method can be. One price forecast from securities firm Wedbush Securities rests on assumptions about Tesla's earnings in 2017.

The article focuses on the use of a corporation's cash flow as a means of evaluating and forecasting its stock price. Cash flow is considered by many analysts as a more accurate means of evaluating a company's performance than net profits statements, which are more susceptible to manipulation by legal accounting methods. Free cash flow, the money a corporation makes which does not go into capital investments, is considered the most accurate measurement.

Focuses on a Bear Stearns report on American Italian Pasta, a small New York Stock Exchange-listed past maker. Present value per share of the stock and what it currently trades for as reported by Bear Stearns; Calculation error in the present value per share as reported by TheStreet.com's Herb Greeneberg; How Bear Stearns have modified their operating cash flow forecasts.