What is Inflation??

Economists call it a decline in the purchasing power of money. Remember we encountered this term while getting acquainted with saving, borrowing and investing? The 'purchasing power of money' is the amount of merchandise that a unit of money (say a rupee) can buy. 
And the term 'inflation' has its roots right there. When the purchasing power of money dwindles with time, the phenomenon is called 'inflation'. This is manifested in a general rise in prices of goods and services.
But why do prices rise?

Let us understand why this happens with the help of a simple example: 
Onions are an integral part of any food preparation in our country. Can you think of having a meal without having a dish that contains onion? Why, onion and chapattis constitute the staple diet for many people.
Let us assume the onion crop fails in a particular year, for whatever reasons.
What happens then? The supply of onions in the market drops. However, people still need onions. Inevitably, the price of onion shoots up as people scramble to buy the limited supply of onions. 
Remember November 1998? Such a situation actually happened in several parts of the country.  It nearly brought down the government! The price of onions rose to as high as Rs40 per kg or  more. 
But how does a simple thing like a one-off drop in onion supply cause prices to rise across the board in sutained fashion?.
In the winter of 1998, the dabbawallas and restaurants were forced to hike their prices in response to the rising prices of onions. Even your local barber and maidservant demanded a higher pay to meet their higher daily expenses. All thanks to the (mighty?) onion. And this  set off a chain reaction.

How?

Think again. It is not only onions that we consume in the course of a day. There is a whole basket of products and services that we draw on, on a day-to-day basis.
Hence, some of you decide to use more of garlic to make up for the lack of onion. The demand for garlic goes up. A few who eat raw onions decide to substitute it with more of tomato and cucumber. The local sabjiwala senses this shift in consumption happening. The smart businessman that he is, he hikes prices of all vegetables. He starts earning more money. Now his children demand that he should get them a new 21" TV with 100 channels.
And with all sabjiwalas rushing to the nearest TV shop, the sales for TV picks up. The TV company makes more money. Noticing the ballooning profits, the employees of the company demand a hike in their salaries. You are lucky to be working for one such company. You have more money in your pocket. And you have always wanted to buy a car...
We could go on and on, but you get the idea,don't you? The price rise is here to stay. Any guesses on who actually benefits and who loses from this rise? Can 'inflation' lead to prosperity? 

But, for now we just need to understand the concept of inflation. After all, the main objective is to figure out how inflation affects the three friends we met last time - saver, borrower and investor.
Last time we understood how important it is for all of us to save. We all need to save for the day when we will not be earning but will still need to spend money on food, clothing and the occasional movie. 
What would have happened if my grandfather had saved a rupee fifty years back to buy rice now? Oh boy! It would have been a total rip-off. He would receive a few grains of rice in exchange for that amount.
In short, inflation is one BIG enemy of savers.

So, why should we save?

A good and important question. But we will come back to it later. We need to find out how this monster they call 'inflation' impacts our two other friends.
We have already discovered that 'borrowing is the opposite of saving'. So if the saver is losing, our borrower must be winning.
Yes, of course. After all, the borrower borrows to spend today and repay later. Imagine if my grandfather had saved a rupee fifty years ago and my grandfather's neighbour had borrowed it from him. The neighbour could have bought 40kg of rice then and had a feast. In case he repaid the money to my grandfather now, all that my grandfather would have been able to buy is a few grains of rice!
To top it all, the borrower spends NOW and adds to the inflation effect, doesn't he? And compounds the misery of our saver.
What about our last friend, investor, the slightly difficult one to understand? 
Imagine once again (just one last time, we promise) that my grandfather's friend had invested a rupee in a paddy field, that is bought a paddy field with a rupee. The smart guy would have been raking in money today, selling a kg of rice at Rs20! 
Our investor friend seems a lot better off than even our borrower who benefits from inflation.
No wonder investing is always considered as a good thing to do to beat inflation. It is what textbooks call 'hedging inflation'.

What To Buy? When To Sell?

Sky rocketing stocks -- What is the right price?
Investors' dilemma is that they want to participate in the tech rally but the numbers look too high. While many of these gravity-defying stocks aren't worth their current prices, a few are. Here's how to tell the difference and when to buy them.
First, when a stock has stratospheric valuations, there's a reason: extremely high expectations. Investors expect the company to perform in an exceptional way in two areas: growth in revenues and growth in earnings. The challenge for investors is to discern which of these high-flying stocks deserve their attention.
Look for a stock that is essential, better performing. Does that mean you just buy the stock and hope? Definitely not. It does mean you start to monitor it and when the stock misses an earnings report or doesn't grow revenues fast enough, you look to buy. That takes patience. There's also the risk that the company won't make a misstep, and you won't buy it. If it happens that way, it will be the first company in history to do so. Granted the level may be much higher than the current one when you finally buy it, but the value of the stock may be much better. In other words, the P/E would be lower than the current levels.
The characteristics of the stocks you want to focus on are:
Market leaders who dominate their niche. The big tend to get bigger, win more contracts and have the largest R&D budgets.
Earnings that are growing, at an increasing rate, every year.
Revenue growth that exceeds the industry average.
Strong management.
Competing in an high and long-term growth oriented industry sector.
When you find all of these factors in a stock, it won't be a cheap one. But if you want to own it, sometimes you have to pay more than you would like. Currently, that's the entry fee for owning the best stocks in the technology areas. If you are patient and wait for some time you can pick some scrips at a relatively good price.
The key to making the big money with these stocks is to own them for a long time, letting them continue to grow. Even if you buy only a few shares, over time you can do very well as the stock grows, splits, and grows again. Many Infosys shareholders started with 10 shares and now own hundreds. When you buy a great company, you own part of it, so having a small piece of a great one is much better than owning a lot of shares in a loser. If you're interested in making the big bucks, add some sky-rocketting stocks to your portfolio.

Discount sales in most sectors – Buy at a bargain.
There are lot of good stocks available at bargain prices. There are ways of finding the stocks, which are currently out of favor.
First, look for stocks that are out of favor for a temporary reason.
Second, look for stocks within sectors that are currently out of favor.
Third, use the tight screening methods to bring stock into your “Watch List” Here are some of the parameters to use and benchmarks to begin your search:
P/E ratio: Use a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30. With current P/E ratios closer to 30, stocks with low P/Es can sometimes signal out of favor stocks. When you find these, make sure you're reading all the latest news items and check the analysts' thinking at ICICIDirect.
Price-to-Sales Ratio: Also called PSR. This is a macro way of looking at a stock. Many investors like to find stocks with a PSR below 1. It's a good number to start with, so put in .5 as a maximum and leave the minimum open. Be careful though, because many stocks will always carry a low PSR. You're looking for the stocks that have historically been high and are temporarily low.
Earnings growth: Look for atleast 20 per cent. If you can find a stock that has its earnings growing at 20% and its P/E at 10, you've got something worth investigating further. This is known as the PEG or P/E-to-Growth ratio. Sharp investors are looking for a ratio well below 1. In this example, the stock would have had a PSR of .5 (10/20).
Return on Equity: Start at 20% as the minimum and see who qualifies. The return on equity tells you how much your invested rupee is earning from the company. The higher the number, the better your investment should do.
By using just this combination of variables, you can find some interesting stocks. Try to squeeze your search each time you screen by tightening your numbers on each variable. And when you do find a stock, make sure you read all the relevant information from all the stock resources on the Web.
Should you buy more if the stock you own keeps climbing?
You can buy additional shares if your stock advances 20% to 25% or more in less than eight weeks, provided the stock still shows signs of strength
Cracking Buying Points
Here are some buying points for your reference
1. Strong long-term and short-term earnings growth. Look for annual earnings growth for the last three years of 25% or greater and quarterly earnings growth of at least 25% in the most recent quarter.
2. Impressive sales growth, profit margins and return on equity. The latest three-quarters of sales growth should be a minimum of 25%, return on equity at least 15%, and profit margins should be increasing.
3. New products, services or leadership. If a company has a dynamic new product or service or is capitalizing on new conditions in the economy, this can have a dramatic impact on the price of a stock.
4. Leading stock in a leading industry group. Nearly 50% of a stock's price action is a result of its industry group's performance. Focus on the top industry groups and within those groups select stocks with the best price performance. Don't buy laggards just because they look cheaper.
5. High-rated institutional sponsorship. You want at least a few of the better performing mutual funds owning the stock. They're the ones who will drive the stock up on a sustained basis. 6. New Highs. Stocks that make new highs on increased volume tend to move higher. Outstanding stocks usually form a price consolidation pattern, and then go on to make their biggest gains when their price breaks above the pattern on unusually high volume.
7. Positive market. You can buy the best stocks out there, but if the general market is weak, most likely your stocks will be weak also.
Cracking Selling Point
The decision of when and how much to buy is a relatively easy task as against when and what to sell. But then here are some pointers, which will assist you in deciding when to sell. Keep in mind that these parameters are not independent pointers but when all of them scream together then its time to step in and sell.
1. When they no longer meet the needs of the investor or when you had bought a stock expecting a specific announcement and it didn't occur. Most Pharma stocks fall into this category. Sometimes when they are on the verge of medical breakthroughs as they so claim, in reality if doesn’t materialize into real medicines; the stock will go down because every one else is selling. It's then time to sell yours too immediately, as it didn’t meet your need.
2. When the price in the market for the securities is an historical high. It's done even better than you initially imagined, went up five or ten times what you paid for it. When you get such a spectacularly performing stock, the last thing you should do is to sell all of it. Don't be afraid of making big money. While you liquidate a part of your holding in the stock to get back your principal and some neat profit, hold on to the rest to get you more money; unless there is some fundamental shift necessitating to sell your whole position. To repeat do not sell your whole position.
3. When the future expectations no longer support the price of the stock or when yields fall below the satisfactory level. You need to constantly monitor the various ratios and data points over time, not just when you buy the stock but also when you sell. When most ratios suggest the stock is getting expensive, as determined by your initial evaluation, then you need to sell the stock. But don't sell if only one of your variables is out of track. There should be a number of them screaming that the stock is fully valued.
4. When other alternatives are more attractive than the stocks held, then liquidate your position in a stock which is least performing and reinvest the same in a new buy.
5. When there is tax advantage in the sale for the investor. If you have made a capital gain somewhere, you can safely buy a stock before dividend announcements i.e. at cum-interest prices and sell it after dividend pay out at ex-interest prices, which will be way below the price at which you had bought the stock. This way the capital loss that you make out of the buy and sell can be offset against the capital gain that you had made elsewhere and will hence cut your taxes on it.
6. Sell if there has been a dramatic change in the direction of the company. Its usually a messy problem when a company successful in one business decides to enter another unrelated venture. Such a decision even though would step up the price initially due to the exuberant announcements, it would begin to fall heavily after a short span. This is because the new venture usually squeezes the successful venture of its reserves and reinvesting capability, thus hurting its future earnings capability.
7. If the earnings and if they aren't improving over two to three quarters, chuck out the stock from your portfolio. To get a higher price on a stock, it needs to constantly improve earnings, not just match past quarters. However, as an investor, you need to read the earnings announcements carefully and determine if there are one-time charges that are hurting current earnings for the benefit of future earnings.
8. Cut losses at the right level. But do not sell on panic. The usual rule for retail investor is to sell if a stock falls 8% below the purchase price. If you don't cut losses quickly, sooner or later you'll suffer some very large losses. Cutting losses at 8% will always allow investors to survive to invest another day.
However, this is not exactly the right way to do it. Some investors have certain disciplines: take only a 10% or 20% loss, then get out. Cut your losses, let your winners ride, etc. The only problem with that is that you often get out just as the stock turns around and heads up to new highs. If you have done your homework on a stock, you will experience a great deal of volatility and a 5 to 8 % move in the stock is part of the trading day. To simply get out of a stock that you've worked hard to find because it goes down, especially without any news attached to it, only guarantees you'll get out and lose money. Stay with a good stock. Keep up with the news and the quarterly reports. Know your stock well, and the fluctuations every investor must endure won't trouble you as much as the uninformed investor. In fact, many of these downdrafts are great opportunities to buy more of a good stock at a great price, not a chance to sell at a loss and miss out on a winner.

The market Talks, Listen to Spot the best

Market Direction.

Is the Market Heading South?

Check out the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex charts every day. Observe the price and volume changes, there may be some selling on a rising day. The key is that volumes may increase on a day as the index closes lower or is range-bound. Studying the general market averages is not the only tool. There are other indicators to spot a topping market: A number of the market's leading stocks will show individual selling signals. In a falling market start selling your worst performing stocks first. If the market continues to do poorly, consider selling more of your stocks. You may need to sell all your stocks if the market doesn't turn around. If any stocks fall 8% below your purchase price, sell immediately. However, if you have tremendous confidence on the company stick to your pick.

Is the Market Turning Upwards?

After a prolonged fall, the market will try to bounce back and try to rally from the low levels. However, you can't tell on the first or second day if the rally is going to last,  you don't buy on the first or second day of a rally. You can afford to wait for a second confirmation that the market has really turned and a new uptrend or bull market has begun. A follow-through will occur if the market rallies for the second time, showing overwhelming strength by closing higher by one per cent with the volume higher than the day's volume. A strong rebound usually occurs between the fourth and seventh session of an attempted rally. Sometimes, it can be as late as the 10th or 15th day, but this usually shows the turn is not as powerful. Some rallies will fail even after a follow-through day. Confirmed rallies have a high success rate, but those that fail usually do so within a few days of the follow-through. Usually, the market turns lower on increasing volume within a few days.

When the market begins a new rally, stocks from all sectors don't rush out of the gates at the same time. The leading industry groups usually set the pace, while laggards trail behind. After a while, the top sprinters may slow down and pass the baton to other strong groups who lead the market still higher.

Investors improve their chances of success by homing in on these leading groups. Investors should be wary of stocks that are far beyond their initial base consolidated point/stage. After the market has corrected and then turns around, stocks will begin shooting out of bases. Count that as a first-stage of a breakout. Most investors are wary of jumping back into the market after a correction. Plus, the stock hasn't done much lately; so many investors won't even notice the breakout. But the fund managers would take buy positions at this stage.

After a stock has run up 25 per cent or more from its pivot point, it may begin to consolidate and form a second-stage base. A four-week or other brief pause doesn't count. A stock should form a healthy base, usually at least seven weeks before it qualifies. Also, when a stock consolidates after rising around 10 per cent, it's forming a base on top of a base. Don't count that it as a second stage.

When the stock breaks out of the second-stage base, a few more investors see this as a powerful move. But the average investor doesn't spot it. By the time the stock breaks out of the third-stage base, a lot of people see what's going on and start jumping in.

When a stock looks obvious to the investment community, it's usually a bad sign. The stock market tends to disappoint most investors. About 50-60% of third-stage bases fail.

But some stocks keep going and eventually form a fourth-stage base. At this point, everybody and their sisters know about this stock. The company's beaming CEO shows up on the cover of business publications. But while thousands of small investors rush into this "sure thing," the top mutual funds may quietly trim or liquidate their holdings.

Most fourth-stage breakouts fail, though not necessarily right way. Some will rise 10% or so before reversing. Fourth-stage failures usually undercut the lows of their old bases.

But a stock can be reborn and begin a new four-base life cycle all over again. All it takes is a sizable correction.

How Do You Define A Bear Market?

Typically, market averages falling 15% to 20% or more.

Buying Volatile Stocks.

Buying at the right moment is the best defence against a volatile market. When the stock of a top-class company rises out of a sound price base on heavy volume, don't chase it more than five per cent past its buy point. Great stocks can rise 20-25% in a few days or weeks. If you purchase at those extended levels, what may turn out to be a normal pullback could shake you out. That risk rises with a more volatile stock.

Caution Signals from the Market!!!

There are several signs in the stock market that suggest caution, even though they're all very bullish. Here are some of them and what they might mean, based on past experience. First, everybody's bullish. If everyone's bullish, that means they've already bought their stock and are hoping more people will follow their enthusiasm. Most individual investors are fully invested. And as long as large inflows are still going into equity mutual funds, everything's fine. Watch out when the flows turn into trickles. There won't be buying power to keep boosting stocks.

Second, fear of the Economy/Political scenario. This is an initial indicator, which would pull of sporadic selling that could eventually mount into an outright bear market.

Third, new records for the SEBI week after week. That’s exuberance and won't continue. The technology sector is leading this market, and there's plenty of growth ahead for the group, but the pricing for many of the tech stocks is way ahead of the earnings. Most of the tech stocks are priced to perfection, meaning that if they don't report earnings above the analysts' expectations, they'll be in for a bashing. Too much good is already priced into many of these stocks. Fourth, a record season for IPOs. While there's always been a push to get financing done when the market is upbeat, this last penultimate (second last) season had been one for the records. Records never last. That's not how the market works. The penultimate season saw IPOs such as Hughes Software, HCL Technologies being subscribed several times over, with premium listings as they opened. This was followed by dismal erosion of value for those IPOs. What followed is issues such as Ajanta Pharma, Cadilla etc, opened at deep discounts. Two emotions drive markets: fear and greed. Usually there is some fear and some greed. Markets usually do best when they climb a wall of fear, meaning that every one expresses fear of investing but stocks continue to go higher. When that sentiment changes to bullish, the market roars ahead. Because the market is depressed, the next psychological state will be fear, and there will be a pull back, nothing severe. This great economy isn't going to stop growing, but many stocks are too far ahead of their numbers and will be pulling back when the market has a bad day.

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental Analysis is a conservative and non-speculative approach based on the "Fundamentals". A fundamentalist is not swept by what is happening in Dalal street as he looks at a three dimensional analysis.

The Economy

The Industry

The Company

All the above three dimensions will have to be weighed together and not in exclusion of each other. In this section we would give you a brief glimpse of each of these factors for an easy digestion

The Economy Analysis

In the table below are some economic indicators and their possible impact on the stock market are given in a nut shell.

	Economic indicators	Impact on the stock market
1.	GNP -Growth -Decline	-Favourable -Unfavourable
2.	Price Conditions - Stable - Inflation	-Favourable -Unfavourable
3.	Economy - Boom - Recession	-Favourable -Unfavourable
4.	Housing Construction Activity - Increase in activity - Decrease in Activity	-Favourable -Unfavourable
5.	Employment - Increase - Decrease	-Favourable -Unfavourable
6.	Accumulation of Inventories	- Favourable under inflation - Unfavourable under deflation
7.	Personal Disposable Income - Increase - Decrease	-Favourable -Unfavourable
8.	Personal Savings	- Favourable under inflation - Unfavourable under deflation
9.	Interest Rates - low - high	-Favourable -Unfavourable
10.	Balance of trade - Positive - Negative	-Favourable -Unfavourable
11.	Strength of the Rupee in Forex market - Strong - Weak	-Favourable -Unfavourable
12.	Corporate Taxation (Direct & Indirect - Low - High	-Favourable -Unfavourable

The Industry Analysis
Every industry has to go through a life cycle with four distinct phases
i) Pioneering Stage
ii) Expansion (growth) Stage
iii) Stagnation (mature) Stage
iv) Decline Stage
These phases are dynamic for each industry. You as an investor is advised to invest in an industry that is either in a pioneering stage or in its expansion (growth) stage. Its advisable to quickly get out of industries which are in the stagnation stage prior to its lapse into the decline stage. The particular phase or stage of an industry can be determined in terms of sales, profitability and their growth rates amongst other factors.
The Company Analysis
There may be situations were the industry is very attractive but a few companies within it might not be doing all that well; similarly there may be one or two companies which may be doing exceedingly well while the rest of the companies in the industry might be in doldrums. You as an investor will have to consider both the financial and non-financial aspects so as to form a qualitative impression about a company. Some of the factors are
History of the company and line of business
Product portfolio's strength
Market Share
Top Management
Intrinsic Values like Patents and trademarks held
Foreign Collaboration, its need and availability for future
Quality of competition in the market, present and future
Future business plans and projects
Tags - Like Blue Chips, Market Cap - low, medium and big caps
Level of trading of the company's listed scripts
EPS, its growth and rating vis-à-vis other companies in the industry.
P/E ratio
Growth in sales, dividend and bottom line

Value, Growth and Income

Growth, Value, Income and GARP are one of the most rational ways of stock analysis. A brief on each of them is given here for your understanding.
Growth Stocks
The task here is to buy stock in companies whose potential for growth in sales and earnings is excellent. Companies growing faster than the rest of the stocks in the market or faster than other stocks in the same industry are the target i.e the Growth Stocks. These companies usually pay little or no dividends, since they prefer to reinvest their profits in their business. Individuals who invest in growth stocks should make up their portfolio with established, well-managed companies that can be held onto for many, many years. Companies like HLL, Nestle, Infosys, Wipro have demonstrated great growth over the years, and are the cornerstones of many portfolios. Most investment clubs stick to growth stocks, too.
Value Stocks
The task here is to look for stocks that have been overlooked by other investors and that which may have a "hidden value." These companies may have been beaten down in price because of some bad event, or may be in an industry that's looked down upon by most investors. However, even a company that has seen its stock price decline still has assets to its name-buildings, real estate, inventories, subsidiaries, and so on. Many of these assets still have value, yet that value may not be reflected in the stock's price. Value investors look to buy stocks that are undervalued, and then hold those stocks until the rest of the market (hopefully!) realizes the real value of the company's assets. The value investors tend to purchase a company's stock usually based on relationships between the current market price of the company and certain business fundamentals. They like P/E ratio being below a certain absolute limit; dividend yields above a certain absolute limit;
Total sales at a certain level relative to the company's market capitalization, or market value. Templeton Mutual funds are one of the major practitioners of this strategy.
Growth is often discussed in opposition to value, but sometimes the lines between the two approaches become quite fuzzy in practice.
Income.
Stocks are widely purchased by people who expect the shares to increase in value but there are still many people who buy stocks primarily because of the stream of dividends they generate. Called income investors, these individuals often entirely forego companies whose shares have the possibility of capital appreciation for high-yielding dividend-paying companies in slow-growth industries.

Keep investing, panic not on your existing stocks

Here's the best tip we can give you if the volatility in the market has spooked you or if you had seen a large profit wash away in the falling market: ignore your stocks right now and keep your investing attention to something else.
Focus all your efforts and time on the company your stock represents. That's because there are really two elements at work when investing: the stock, which is part of the stock market, and the company, something the stock is supposed to represent. But the company works in a different universe from the stock market, involved more in the real world of profits and losses rather than the emotional tide of fear and greed, the two major forces behind the stock market. With the uncertainty prevailing in the market, fear is rampant and some of it is justified, but there are lots of good companies that might be hammered by that emotion. That's why you'll do better if you research your companies in depth rather than trying to figure out if the morning sell off is the beginning of the end or just a hick up on the road to true wealth. But let's say you've done all your numbers, and everything looks great. You've checked for the latest news and you still can't tell why your stock is down. Then you might want to call the company directly and ask for the Investor Relations department. Don't expect the investor relations person to tell you any secrets or unpublished information but you can ask a few questions and get a better feeling about the company:
1. Why is the stock down so dramatically? Are there rumours the company has heard?
If so, what is the company's response to them.
2. Is there anything the company can say about the stock being down?
3. Are the officers of the firm buying or selling the stock?
4. Is the company buying its own shares right now?
You will hence get a sense of how the company is responding to its stock being down, and maybe hear about news that has just been published but you haven't read. Then, when you've done all you can to determine that the company in which you've invested is indeed doing everything well, you can ignore the stock and be assured that this too shall pass. If you determine that the stock is down for a good reason and seems to be going lower, then you can sell it and move on to another company. In either case, you can make a decision based on the company and not the stock.

The P/E ratio as a guide to investment decisions

Earnings per share alone mean absolutely nothing. In order to get a sense of how expensive or cheap a stock is, you have to look at earnings relative to the stock price and hence employ the P/E ratio. The P/E ratio takes the stock price and divides it by the last four quarters' worth of earnings. If AB ltd is currently trading at Rs. 20 a share with Rs. 4 of earnings per share (EPS), it would have a P/E of 5. Big increase in earnings is an important factor for share value appreciation. When a stock's P-E ratio is high, the majority of investors consider it as pricey or overvalued. Stocks with low P-E's are typically considered a good value. However, studies done and past market experience have proved that the higher the P/E, the better the stock.
A Company that currently earns Re 1 per share and expects its earnings to grow at 20% p.a will sell at some multiple of its future earnings. Assuming that earnings will be Rs 2.50 (i.e Re 1 compounded at 20% p.a for 5 years). Also assume that the normal P/E ratio is 15. Then the stock selling at a normal P/E ratio of 15 times of the expected earnings of Rs 2.50 could sell for Rs 37.50 (i.e rs 2.5*15) or 37.5 times of this years earnings.
Thus if a company expects its earnings to grow by 20% per year in the future, investors will be willing to pay now for those shares an amount based on those future earnings. In this buying frenzy, the investors would bid the price up until a share sells at a very high P/E ratio relative to its present earnings.
First, one can obtain some idea of a reasonable price to pay for the stock by comparing its present P/E to its past levels of P/E ratio. One can learn what is a high and what is a low P/E for the individual company. One can compare the P/E ratio of the company with that of the market giving a relative measure. One can also use the average P/E ratio over time to help judge the reasonableness of the present levels of prices. All this suggests that as an investor one has to attempt to purchase a stock close to what is judged as a reasonable P/E ratio based on the comparisons made. One must also realize that we must pay a higher price for a quality company with quality management and attractive earnings potential.