That's "price to earnings ratio, and the nomenclature here is a 10. Not like Bo Derek in the '80s, but rather the nod that the company being valued is trading at 10 times its earnings.
What year's earnings? Well, most quote trailing 4 quarters, or this current year's earnings. So if the company was trading at $12 and it had earned $1.20 in its last 4 quarters, then it'd be a 10 P/E.
So...is 10 good? Bad? Ugly? Answer: bad. Probably bad, anyway. If all the earnings were cash, i.e. little depreciation or amortzation from heavy capex, then it would imply a "cash dividend" of 10%, a huge number in today's world. The average S&P 500 company has like 2% in yield and trades in the 20x's in the modern era. So for something to be trading at only 10 times, it means that the Street either believes its earnings are going down...or that there is just generally something wrong with this company, its industry, or something else...bad.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is the Price-To-Earnings R...217 Views
Finance a lash up What is the price to earnings
ratio All right You just inherited a thousand shares of
whatever dot com which trades publicly for twenty bucks a
share And you also inherited a thousand shares of pepsi
And that stock trades publicly for forty bucks a share
Your sister got the pewter bunny rabbit collection but well
you can live with that fact that you take the
thousand shares All right so what on earth do you
do now What do you do with these things Well
you have no idea Because you're an orthodontist and you
have your hands in wet mouths all day Well if
you'd inherited a truckload of floss well then we totally
know what to do with it All right Will you
check out the brokerage reports from morgan stanley on whatever
dot com it has one hundred million dollars in revenue
and no earnings no profits Well what Our earnings again
Oh yeah This revenues from whatever's app sales at a
buck Each one hundred million of them minus its cost
of goods sold Well it had to pay fifty million
bucks to apple and others to get it saps out
There well then it had a small army of engineers
and product people on payroll to build The app will
subtract another thirty million box then it had rent in
legal expenses and health care insurance and office things like
computers and app servers All of that added up to
be twenty million dollars and because of the accounting laws
you have to subtract it all last year Even though
the app it lasts a long time i had to
take it all off the top It had a hundred
million dollars in revenues and a hundred million dollars in
expenses and no earnings but it has fifty million shares
outstanding which when multiplied by twenty bucks a share that's
What the market's paying for it twenty dollars share It
gives it a market value of a billion bucks Take
the shares outstanding kinds of market price to get what
the company's worth at least according to wall street buying
and selling the shares Oh it has fifty million dollars
in cash on the books and no debt so the
market is valuing the equity of the company at nine
hundred fifty million dollars meaning it's valuing the earnings power
Of the company in the future in his hands at
nine Fifty alright so you wonder forth an honest and
would be flossed cellar that you are How khun something
with no profits no earnings be worth a billion dollars
Well you read through the report which notes that the
revenues are growing really fast like one hundred percent a
year and that the market whoever that is believes that
the company will have two hundred million in revenues next
year and for hundred million the following year and on
four hundred million of revenues it will have one hundred
million dollars in net earnings It'll also produce fifty million
in cash along the way so in two years it
will have one hundred million dollars in cash on the
books and no debt If you go back and think
about that that you could subtract one hundred million from
the billion and it's the nine hundred million of equity
value back we'll get All right So you ponder that
means that today at a billion dollars i'm paying if
i buy it at twenty bucks a share i'm paying
nine times the earnings expected in two years Two years
From now for the equity value of this company huh
Well is nine times earnings cheap expensive Attaway frame the
notion Well the average snp company trades it about sixteen
times two years out earning something like that But the
average company is totally different from whatever dot com The
average company is like a caterpillar Tractors or well pepsi's
kind of average Wells fargo kind of average Well it's
a mature company unlike whatever dot com and the people
who write for shmoop but not mature way No Well
caterpillar has been around for a century has a stable
set of fires And you know what are the odds
People still need tractors to mine food in five years
You have pretty good odds whereas whatever dot com might
have totally evaporated by them Yeah well what about revenue
growth Yep Caterpillars matured gross revenues that only about eight
percent a year in a good year And it has
a lot of capital expenses Well every decade or so
it needs a new smelting plant to smelt engines and
redo its manufacturing process Tio you know keep up with
the joneses or rather the blues or chains Oh and
it pays a small dividend yeah helps well tough company
to compare with whatever dot com but caterpillar trades at
about sixteen times thiss years earnings and it'll grow earning
slowly and you note that it trades at fifteen times
and extras projected earnings and fourteen times the following year's
earnings So that's interesting caterpillar trades at a hire multiple
on two year forward earnings than whatever dot com who
does that make sense It's nowhere near ist sexy a
company but it must be the risk the market is
discounting a lot of risk because the odds that whatever
dot com doesn't make its four hundred million dollars in
projected app sales in two years well that's pretty good
could earn a lot less so you know you get
it You'll keep your shares of whatever dot com if
you believe they'll really hit the one hundred million in
earnings on four hundred million of revenues two years from
now and you'll dump the shares if you don't Well
what about pepsi Well that's company that financially sounds a
lot more like caterpillar than whatever dot com the risk
of people still drinking highly addictive caffeinated fizzy water and
salted potatoes in five years left pepsi sells a lot
of data chips Yeah really good odds Pepsi grows a
bit faster than caterpillar it has a bit higher margins
and it acquires competitors all the time dipping its toes
even outside the food and snacks arena So it has
a really big playing field that it plays on by
a lot of things and there's that global warming thing
People drink more when it's hot right So pepsi learn
about two bucks a share this year and it trades
that twenty times earnings or forty dollars Well because pepsi
has long term distribution contract with grocery stores and vending
machines and theme parks and other weird places it sells
its wears well pepsi has a pretty highly predictable earning
stream So when peopie tells the street that it'll learned
to twenty next year in two forty the following year
what likelihood Very high that it hits those numbers are
maybe does little better because it has a history of
under promising and over delivering and on its two bucks
forty and earnings at forty dollars pep trades at a
bit of a premium to the stock market overall that
to forty and earnings on a forty dollars a share
price today means that peopie trades at sixteen point six
times two years out Earnings well the overall stock market
trades at sixteen times this year's earnings because well earnings
are growing It trades it about fifteen times earnings two
years out Why all of these crazy comparisons That air
probably confusing you well because price to earnings ratios are
just one measure of the value of a company relative
to everything else The p e ratio is just one
metric investors used to measure the value of a company
and the basic foundation of the idea is simple If
you invest a dollar in a company today you want
to be paid back either by getting cash distributions coming
to you That overtime are much greater than that dollar
you put in like big dividends and so on Or
you want the asset itself to simply appreciate it A
healthy fast pace about eight dollars worth of stock Well
you want that stock to double every you know three
four five six years something like that Alright we'll announce
for your sister's rabbit collection Well that things should multiply
At a good rate too unless she decides to separate 00:07:47.975 --> [endTime] them
Up Next
What is an Aggressive Growth Fund, A GO GO Fund, A High Octane Fund? An aggressive growth fund (also referred to as GO GO or high octane) is a type...
What is a value investor? Value investors try to make money by investing in stocks that they think are undervalued by the market. Because they thin...