The Essential P/E
Understanding the stock market through the price-earnings ratio
By Keith Anderson
Jacket text
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.
About the author
After completing his BSc in Mathematical Statistics and Operational Research at Exeter, Keith Anderson worked for some years as a systems developer, most recently at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. He then did an MSc in Investment Analysis at Stirling, where he won the Morley Prize as the top academically in his year. For his PhD at the ICMA Centre, Reading University, Keith showed that different ways of calculating the Price-Earnings ratio could significantly improve investor returns. He worked as a lecturer at Durham University Business School for two years before moving to York in 2008. Keith has written a number of books, papers and articles.
Reviews
This book offers essential scientific reassurance, as well as practical tools, to triumph over misconceptions and behavioral errors that distort stock market prices. I recommend it to readers with great enthusiasm.
Media coverage
From Traders' Magazine:
Who needs a book on the P/E? In recent decades the P/E has been the most important and best known investment ratio, but what does it actually mean? Apart from the share price, it is the only investment statistic that is published in print every day. Every share quoted in London has its P/E printed… Read more »
From MoneyMaker Magazine:
In recent decades the P/E has been the most important and best-known investment ratio. Apart from the share price, it is the only investment statistic that is published in print every day. Every share quoted in London has its P/E printed daily in the Companies section of the Financial Times. But what does it actually… Read more »
From Interactive Investor:
If you take today?s share price and divide it by one year of earnings per share taken from a company?s results six or more years ago it will, in general, be a more powerful predictor of future stock market returns than using this year?s earnings. That remarkable fact reminds me how many investors take the… Read more »
From Moneywise:
The price-earnings ratio, or P/E, is the most commonly quoted investment statistic, but have you ever considered what it actually means? This book is a practical guide to how you can use p/e, alongside other financial ratios, to run against the crowd and boost your stock returns. To win one of 10 copies, send a… Read more »
From Money Observer:
The price/earnings ratio is one of the most commonly-quoted investment statistics ? but what does it actually mean? In The Essential P/E, Keith Anderson explains how you can use the p/e ratio to boost your stock market returns. To win one of five copies, email your name and address to moneyobserver.ed@moneyobserver.com by 3pm on Friday… Read more »
From Investment Week :
In recent decades the P/E has been the most important and best-known investment ratio. Indeed, apart from the share price, it is the only investment statistic that is published in print every day. Every share quoted in London has its P/E printed daily in the Companies section of the Financial Times. The P/E also has… Read more »
Contents
About the Author
Foreword by Werner De Bondt
Preface
Introduction
Part I: The P/E Calculation
1. History of the P/E
2. Earnings
3. The Price-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
4. Practical Calculation of EPS and the P/E from Company Accounts
Part II: The Value Premium and the P/E
5. Value Investing
6. Efficient Markets and the CAPM
7. Accepting Reality: The Fama and French 3-Factor Model
8. Value Investors Fight Back
Part III: Improving the P/E
9. Developing the P/E
10. The PEG Ratio
11. The Long-Term P/E
12. Decomposing the P/E
13. A Cautionary Tale: the Naked P/E
14. Have we Rescued the P/E?
Part IV: Beyond the P/E
15. Ben Graham: The P/E and the Margin of Safety
16. Joel Greenblatt: The P/E and Return on Capital
17. Joseph Piotroski: The P/E and the Fscore
Conclusion
Appendices
FTSE 100 EPSs and P/Es
Glossary
References
Index
Edition: | 1st |
---|---|
Pages: | 212 |
Formats: | paperback - ISBN 9780857190802 ebook - ISBN 9780857192448 hardback - ISBN |
If you’d like to get in touch with the author for interview or comment, or you’d like a review copy of this book, please contact us at pr@harriman-house.com or call +44 (0)1730 233870.
RightsFor information on available rights, please contact rights@harriman-house.com
Bulk purchasesWe offer discounts for bulk purchases. Please contact specialsales@harriman-house.com for a quote.