In This Article:
The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We'll show how you can use Yancoal Australia Ltd's (ASX:YAL) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. What is Yancoal Australia's P/E ratio? Well, based on the last twelve months it is 5.32. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 19%.
View our latest analysis for Yancoal Australia
How Do You Calculate A P/E Ratio?
The formula for price to earnings is:
Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)
Or for Yancoal Australia:
P/E of 5.32 = A$3.6 ÷ A$0.68 (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.)
Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?
A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying a higher price for each A$1 of company earnings. That isn't a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the business's prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E.
How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. That's because companies that grow earnings per share quickly will rapidly increase the 'E' in the equation. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. And as that P/E ratio drops, the company will look cheap, unless its share price increases.
Yancoal Australia increased earnings per share by a whopping 35% last year.
How Does Yancoal Australia's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?
We can get an indication of market expectations by looking at the P/E ratio. If you look at the image below, you can see Yancoal Australia has a lower P/E than the average (8.2) in the oil and gas industry classification.
This suggests that market participants think Yancoal Australia will underperform other companies in its industry. Since the market seems unimpressed with Yancoal Australia, it's quite possible it could surprise on the upside. It is arguably worth checking if insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued.
Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits
Don't forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. That means it doesn't take debt or cash into account. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future) by investing in growth. That means taking on debt (or spending its cash).
Spending on growth might be good or bad a few years later, but the point is that the P/E ratio does not account for the option (or lack thereof).