There can be more than one value for P/E, P/S, and P/B ?

[cramoisie]

Through TD Bank Direst Investing, I can access a stock's analysis reports. One report is by Argus Research. In it, under Valuation Analysis, there are 2 variations (HIGHs & LOWs) each of P/E, P/S, and P/B for a given year. For example: for the Fortis (FTS) stock, for 2018, P/E High is 24.0 and P/E Low is 15.9. For other years, there is also NIL for both high and low.

Does it mean the ratios were continuously calculated throughout the given year and the minimum and maximum are the low and high?

What does the 2 numbers mean for each of these ratios for a given year?

Which one should an investor use for that year?

Thanks.

 

[ashleyn5369]

@cramoisie

1. Yes, or at least periodically.
2. Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
3. Neither. I imagine you’d want to use the current ratio (with the most recent data) instead of the historical figures.

 

[steve_br]

@cramoisie Sounds to me like it was just the highest and lowest the ratio was in a given period?

 

[ilovefriedchicken]

@cramoisie Does it mean the ratios were continuously calculated throughout the given year and the minimum and maximum are the low and high? Yes - they are calculated continuously - earnings are reported quarterly and the price changes in milliseconds.

What does the 2 numbers mean for each of these ratios for a given year? likely a min/max for the 52 week year.

Which one should an investor use for that year?

Refer to current PE ratio but 'earnings' in any given period does not say much about performance of a company. Real valuation tends to look at PE across 5-10 year periods and many of the most richest valued stocks barely have any 'E' to speak of (which is why any crazy valuation makes sense).

Welcome to the stock market.

 

[resjudicata]

@cramoisie The P/E is a ratio of two numbers ... the market price that is constantly changing, and the EPS that changes each quarter. So the ratio is itself changed daily and all through the day at least by the changing stock price.