1 When ‘P’ and ‘E’ Spell Profits P/E ratio can mean many things to many investors Simple definition: How much you pay per dollar of stock’s earnings; A stock selling at $20 that earned $1 per share would have a P/E of 20. More complicated definitions: Trailing P/E: Based on previous 12 months earnings; Problem – past performance may not predict future prospects; Future P/E: Based on predicted future earnings; Problems associated with predicting future earnings.

2 When ‘P’ and ‘E’ Spell Profits Future P/E ratio is a function of several factors Growth rate in earnings General condition of the market Firm’s capital structure; i.e. required rate of return Current and expected Inflation Level of dividends, expected dividend payout

3 When ‘P’ and ‘E’ Spell Profits An investor should know if a stock has a P/E of 16, what does it mean? Is it trailing, current or future P/E? P/E varies widely among companies and industries over time. Influenced by business cycle and interest rates. Strong correlation between individual stock P/E and market as a whole; P/E rises during bull and shrinks during bear.

4 When ‘P’ and ‘E’ Spell Profits It is easy to misread P/E Fast growing high-tech stock has high P/E Financial stocks rarely command high P/E General rule of interpreting P/E: P/E over 20 is considered to be fast growing, riskier firms Low P/E is considered to be matured, low risk firms OR stocks that have fallen in hard times Cyclical stock P/E tends to rise and fall with business cycle; if trailing P/E of cyclical stock falls to a single digit, it is time to sell

5 When ‘P’ and ‘E’ Spell Profits Competing theories of P/E: Investing in low P/E stocks is less risky and more rewarding than high P/E stocks. Those who buy low P/E stocks are called Value Investors – companies that are undervalued but possess excellent growth prospects. Those who buy high P/E stocks are called Growth Investors – investors believe future earnings will rapidly drive up share prices.

6 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? C. Barry White (FAJ, Nov/Dec2000) History of P/E Reliable records of P/E began in 1926 Range of P/E from 1949 – 99 was 5.9 – – Stock prices driven up by the “Nifty Fifty”-Sony, Polaroid, etc. Nifty Fifty companies P/E: 60 to 90 times, rest of S&P about Large cap stock as a group lost 37%; P/E fell to 7.

7 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? P/E Trends: 1949 – 61 : P/E from 6 to : down to : up to more than 30 Return Since 1995: 1995 : 37.4% 1996 : 23.1% 1997 : 33.4% 1998 : 28.6% Stock Prices grew faster than earnings. Therefore, P/E expanded.

8 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Factors that Influence P/E Past studies have linked P/E to: Earnings growth Dividend payout Volatility of return Liquidity, etc.

9 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Additional variables to be considered are: Short-term rates (T-bills) Aggregate dividend yield Dividend payout ratio Money supply Federal Reserve P/E index Earnings growth GDP growth Volatility and total return of the S&P 500

10 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Previous Studies Is P/E a good indicator for future returns? Consumption drives stock returns Demand for and supply of equities Fama (JF 1991): an economy must have increasing consumption to support higher earnings if higher equity prices are to be justified and sustainable.

11 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Campbell and Shiller (JPM 1998): annual data, , studied stock return as a function of dividend yield Historical mean of D/P=4.73% In 1997, D/P fell to 1.9% In the past, when D/P fell below 3.4%, stock market always declined in real terms before it again crossed through the D/P historical mean. High stock price and P/E are often justified by low inflation.

12 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Goetzmann & Jorion (JF 1993): monthly data from 1927 through 1990; expected return increased strongly with higher dividend yield. Good (1991): studied return as a function of P/E; quarterly data ; subsequent 12 month return could be predicted only when P/E is very high (>20) or very low (<8).

13 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? What Determines P/E? Expected earnings growth as a measure of the earnings multiple. Problem: long-term earnings are difficult to predict. P/E using constant growth: P/E= (Do/E)(1+g) K-g Thus: P/E positively related to payout Volatility of return increases, so does K, this lowers P/E

14 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Beaver and Morse: Volatility in earnings growth explain 50.5% of the variation in P/E. They used earning return (E/P) for the regression rather than P/E because E/P is believed to exhibit linearity whereas P/E does not.

15 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Reilly, Griggs, and Wong (1983 ): S&P 400 data; inflation and risk free return have a negative correlation with P/E, but positively related to earnings growth, dividend to earnings, and business failure rate. Business failure rate was not a reliable P/E indicator. Nomura Securities Study (1994): higher inflation depresses P/Es.

16 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? White (1997): Data from for S&P 500; multiple regression output: P/E is inversely related to GDP growth, inflation, and dividend yield. Malkiel and Cragg (1970): Data from for 178 companies. P/E for individual companies are determined by: Expected earnings growth (+) Dividend payout (+) Financial leverage (-) Volatility of operating earnings (-)

17 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Kane, Marcus and Noh (1996): Monthly data for S&P 500 for Concluded that standard deviation of returns increases on a “permanent” basis, the market P/E will fall; P/E did not fall in 1987 because extreme volatility was not believed to be permanent. Lagged P/E was the most powerful predictor of P/E.

18 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Loughlin (1996): Quarterly data for , S&P 500 Dividend payout (+) Five year T-notes (-) Expected Earnings (+)

19 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Fairfield (FAJ 1994): Followed individual companies for 5 years over the period of Focused on profitability and dividends as determinants of P/E and price to book value. Findings: P/E was higher for companies having higher-than-average five year growth. Higher P/E was also associated with lower-than-average earnings growth for the current year; companies with temporarily depressed earnings had high P/Es.

20 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Data: Quarterly time series data from 1926 through 1997; dividends and earnings are announced quarterly. Test of multicollinearity was run, T-bill was discarded and T-bond yield was used. Explain R2; t-values; F-value; d-stat;etc. Explain the model building process.

21 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Model: Theoretical foundation of the model is as follows: Maginn and Tuttle (1990): P/E= (B)(ROE)(D/E)/ E(K-g) B/E= book value/earnings (+) D/E= dividend payout (+) K= required return (-) Bodie, Kane, and Marcus (1993): Po = 1 + PVGO E1 K E1 Po/E1 = forward P/E-current price divided by expected 12 month earnings PVGO= PV of all future growth opportunities (+) For zero growth companies, P/E = 1/K

22 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support ? P/E and E/P are used as dependent variables. The Independent variable and their expected signs are presented in Table 1.

23 Independent VariableExpected Variable Inflation Inverse T-bond yields Inverse T-bill yields Inverse Dividend yield on S&P 500Inverse D/EDirect Money Supply (MZ)Direct FED P/E indexDirect Earnings growthDirect Trailing volatility of returnsInverse Trailing S&P 500 returnsDirect GDP quarterly growthDirect

24 What P/E Will the Stock Market Support? Major Findings: Explain Table 2. In order of ranking (based on t-values) the variables are: Dividend yield Dividend payout Total return (dividend and capital gain) FedPEX (inverse of current 10 year bond) Inflation Based on 1999 Data: P/E should be between 18 to 23. Can P/E be used for market timing?

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