Will the Real P/E Please Stand Up?
However, if you look through any investment information resource commonly used by individual investors, you'll find numerous definitions of the term. Because the price-earnings ratio is a powerful summary of market opinion, financial analysts have frequently fiddled with it, producing what may appear to be endless variations on a theme.
Sorting out the different ways price-earnings ratios are quoted and how each different price-earnings ratio technique can be applied and interpreted should aid in your stock selection decisions.
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What It Is
Price-earnings ratios (P/Es) are determined by taking a stock's share price and dividing it by the firm's earnings per share.
The ratio simply relates share price to earnings: the higher the price-earnings ratio, the more investors are paying for each dollar of earnings. If a stock has a price-earnings ratio of 15, it means that investors are paying $15 for each $1 of earnings.
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