The Applied Finance Group

Rafael Resendes

Co-founded the Applied Finance Group and is Managing Director for Toreador Research and Trading.[3]

Prior to co-founding AFG, Resendes was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and served as director of research for HOLT Value Associates. Rafael graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The University of California, Berkeley, with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economic Analysis and obtained an MBA from the University of Chicago.[4][5]

Resendes has also contributed his insight to various news outlets such as CNBC, CNN, Fox News, RealClearPolitics.[6][7][8][9][10]

Dan Obrycki

Prior to co-founding AFG, Obrycki was the manager of research for a portfolio consulting firm, HOLT Value Associates. Daniel graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri-Rolla with a BS in geological engineering and obtained his MBA with a finance specialization from the University of Chicago.[11]

Obrycki has also served as an adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago.[12]

In 1995 Rafael Resendes and Daniel Obrycki founded the Applied Finance Group in Chicago, Illinois as an independent research company. AFG sought to build a more sophisticated Value Based Metric to measure a company's true economic profit. With that goal in mind, AFG developed its proprietary framework, Economic Margin (EM), to evaluate corporate performance from an economic cash flow perspective.[13][14][15] In 2001, Morningstar, Inc. adopted AFG's Methodology to launch the Morningstar Rating for stocks.[16] AFG expanded to its second office in Fresno, California in 2003. Resendes relocated to work as head of the Fresno Office, while Obrycki managed from Chicago.

In 2004, AFG created a large cap model portfolio of stocks called the AFG50. AFG created the AFG50 portfolio to provide Trust Departments and small RIAs a product that could serve as an outsource/research team.[17][18] Later that year AFG partnered with Chief Executive Magazine and Drew Morris, CEO of "Great Numbers!", to launch the Chief Executive/Applied Finance Group Wealth Creation Rankings, a research instrument used to rank companies based on their value and ability to create value.[19] In 2009 AFG began providing research internationally for the first time in the company's history.

AFG launched Value Expectations in 2008, a stock blog and investment newsletter. Value Expectations was created to serve as an outlet covering topics on corporate performance and equity valuation.[20]

• AFG Home Website
• Value Expectations