What happened in the past or even what's happening today is less important than the prospects for future earnings. Predicting future earnings requires adding another component to our BrandZ formula. This component assesses future earnings prospects as a multiple of current earnings. We call this component the Brand Multiple. It's similar to the calculation used by financial analysts to determine the market value of stocks (Example: 6X earnings or 12X earnings). Information supplied by Bloomberg data helps us calculate a Brand Multiple. We take the Branded Earnings and multiply that number by the Brand Multiple to arrive at what we call Financial Value.