But for investors to truly value the opportunity cost of holding Treasuries, Winmill expects real interest rates on 2-year Treasuries to hit 300 basis points.

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Finally, we calculate the net-present-value of all those costs to capture the opportunity cost of tying your money up in a down payment .

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The notion behind the yardsticks is simple: a company creates value only if the return on its capital is greater than the opportunity cost of it, or the rate that investors could earn by investing in other securities with the same risk.

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