Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Essential P/E: Understanding the Stock Market Through the Price-Earnings Ratio

The Essential P/E: Understanding the Stock Market Through the Price-Earnings Ratio

Anderson, Keith

Paperback

Series: Harriman Finance Essentials

Investing & FinancePersonal Finance

Publisher Price: $26.00

ISBN10: 0857190806
ISBN13: 9780857190802
Publisher: Harriman House
Published: Jun 4 2012
Pages: 214
Weight: 0.78
Height: 0.76 Width: 6.29 Depth: 9.16
Language: English

The price-earnings ratio, or P/E, is the most commonly quoted investment statistic, but have you ever considered what it actually means? For most people it's a shorthand way of deciding how highly the market regards a company, with investors prepared to overpay for earnings from a high-P/E 'glamour' stock as opposed to a low-P/E 'value' stock. However, academics have known since 1960 that the opposite is true: value stocks outperform glamour stocks consistently over decades.

A company with a low P/E may have been marked down for no readily apparent reason and thus could represent an attractive value investment for those with the patience to wait while the market re-values it. However, the P/E is a backward-looking measure and just because the company earned  1 per share last year it doesn't necessarily mean it will earn anything like that in the foreseeable future. Or, a low P/E can mean a company is deservedly cheap because it is in financial difficulty - in this case the company is likely to become cheaper yet or even go into administration.

This book is a practical guide to how you can adjust and improve the price-earnings ratio and use it, alongside other financial ratios, to run against the crowd and boost your stock returns.

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