The PE ratio is one of the most popular and valuable tools used by investors to assess the value of a stock, allowing them to make appropriate investment decisions. Every investor should understand this simple measure. If they do, they will make better investment decisions, but not all PE ratios are equal and the differences should be noted when using them to make investment decisions.
“The PE Ratio is a measure used in computing appropriate stock values, averages 16 based on ICInsider.com’s forecast of 2021-22 earnings.”  Readers of ICInsider.com’s daily Jamaican stock market reports will be familiar with the above quote.
What is the reason to quote this daily? PEs help investors determine if they value stocks appropriately by comparing the value of one stock against another and the overall market value.
The PE ratio is the number of years it takes for investors to get back their money based on the profit made by a company, ignoring growth in profits. At the close of trading on Wednesday, Main Market stocks were trading at an average of around 15.8, which is equal to the amount of money invested in each stock that would be repaid within 15.8 years based on this year’s profit and assuming the profit would be constant for the next 15.8 years.
On the surface, stocks with high PE ratios take longer to deliver returns than those with lower PEs, all things being equal. Globally, stocks with high PEs have high growth rates, resulting in a higher level of an annual increase in profit than stocks with lower PEs. The rationale is that if profits are going fast, the accumulated gains will reduce the payback period.
Investors can find the PE ratio for each stock on the daily report of Jamaica Stock Exchange stocks quotation charts included in the markets’ reports. The charts carry projected earnings for each company and the PE ratio for each stock, based on ICInsider.com computations. From these charts, investors can easily see the stocks that are expensive and those that are not. A company with profits growing at 10 percent per annum will have profit doubling in 7.2 years. A company that has profits growing at 20 percent per annum will double its earnings in 3.6 years, which should carry a higher PE ratio than the former.
Don’t follow the crowd. Pay attention to facts, not fads. The general rule; buy stocks with low PEs and stay away from those with high PEs and monitor them regularly to see if there are significant changes that may warrant changes in an investment.
While many investors get attracted to cheaper priced stocks believing they can double easier than high priced ones, they often ignore the main feature that determines cheapness and, therefore, the ability to make more profitable trades.
A significant and most crucial issue is the makeup of the profits used in computing the PEs, are they based on earnings from continuing operations or not? Not all PEs are equal and investors need to find out periods used to calculate the PE ratio and the quality of earnings used in the composition. PEs may be based on historical profits, trailing four quarters, current year’s or based on future earnings. Why is this important? Many companies have onetime income or expenses that are not likely to repeat consistently in the future. In such cases, it is vital to strip earnings of the onetime items to determine earnings from continuing operations. If reported profits are not adjusted for these items, the stock may be considered undervalued or overvalued and lead investors and lead to wrong investment decisions.
The usual procedure is to buy when PE are low and sell when high. Patience is required as stocks tend to take time to fully valuation, especially when they have fallen out of favour.