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This article is written for those who want to get better at using price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We'll show how you can use EVN AG's (VIE:EVN) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. Looking at earnings over the last twelve months, EVN has a P/E ratio of 18.70. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 5.3%.
View our latest analysis for EVN
How Do You Calculate A P/E Ratio?
The formula for P/E is:
Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)
Or for EVN:
P/E of 18.70 = €15.72 ÷ €0.84 (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2019.)
Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?
A higher P/E ratio implies that investors pay a higher price for the earning power of the business. All else being equal, it's better to pay a low price -- but as Warren Buffett said, 'It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
How Does EVN's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?
The P/E ratio indicates whether the market has higher or lower expectations of a company. The image below shows that EVN has a higher P/E than the average (11.8) P/E for companies in the electric utilities industry.
That means that the market expects EVN will outperform other companies in its industry. Clearly the market expects growth, but it isn't guaranteed. So further research is always essential. I often monitor director buying and selling.
How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
Companies that shrink earnings per share quickly will rapidly decrease the 'E' in the equation. That means even if the current P/E is low, it will increase over time if the share price stays flat. A higher P/E should indicate the stock is expensive relative to others -- and that may encourage shareholders to sell.
EVN's earnings per share fell by 47% in the last twelve months. And it has shrunk its earnings per share by 2.2% per year over the last three years. This growth rate might warrant a low P/E ratio.
Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits
One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. So it won't reflect the advantage of cash, or disadvantage of debt. The exact same company would hypothetically deserve a higher P/E ratio if it had a strong balance sheet, than if it had a weak one with lots of debt, because a cashed up company can spend on growth.
Such expenditure might be good or bad, in the long term, but the point here is that the balance sheet is not reflected by this ratio.