Going Beyond P/e’s

Article Excerpt

Some investors base buy and sell decisions in part on p/e ratios (the ratio of a stock’s price to its per-share earnings). When we provide a p/e, we try to eliminate all one-time items from earnings. These include writedowns, investment gains or restructuring charges. This gives you a clearer, truer view of a company’s profitability. For decades, investors have used p/e’s to spot undervalued stocks. But a low p/e can signal danger rather than a bargain. That’s why you need to look at p/e ratios in context. In addition to p/e’s, we look at a variety of measures that identify value and risk. One of our favourites is the price-to-sales (p/s) ratio: the share price divided by sales per share. Sales are more stable than earnings, and less subject to manipulation by management. Value investors often look for stocks with a p/s of less than 1.0. But it takes more than a low p/s to make a stock a buy. Sales are the…