Yahoo Finance Read This Before You Buy Deutsche Post AG (ETR:DPW) Because Of Its P/E Ratio
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This article is for investors who would like to improve their understanding of price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We’ll show how you can use Deutsche Post AG’s (ETR:DPW) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. Deutsche Post has a P/E ratio of 15.26, based on the last twelve months. In other words, at today’s prices, investors are paying €15.26 for every €1 in prior year profit.
See our latest analysis for Deutsche Post
How Do I Calculate Deutsche Post’s Price To Earnings Ratio?
The formula for P/E is:
Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)
Or for Deutsche Post:
P/E of 15.26 = €26.13 ÷ €1.71 (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.)
Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?
A higher P/E ratio means that buyers have to pay a higher price for each €1 the company has earned over the last year. 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 Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. That’s because companies that grow earnings per share quickly will rapidly increase the ‘E’ in the equation. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. So while a stock may look expensive based on past earnings, it could be cheap based on future earnings.
Deutsche Post’s earnings per share fell by 24% in the last twelve months. But over the longer term (5 years) earnings per share have increased by 6.6%.
How Does Deutsche Post’s P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?
The P/E ratio essentially measures market expectations of a company. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (20.6) for companies in the logistics industry is higher than Deutsche Post’s P/E.
This suggests that market participants think Deutsche Post will underperform other companies in its industry. Many investors like to buy stocks when the market is pessimistic about their prospects. You should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling.
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. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future), by taking on debt (or spending its remaining cash).
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.
Is Debt Impacting Deutsche Post’s P/E?
Deutsche Post has net debt worth 43% of its market capitalization. This is a reasonably significant level of debt — all else being equal you’d expect a much lower P/E than if it had net cash.
The Verdict On Deutsche Post’s P/E Ratio
Deutsche Post trades on a P/E ratio of 15.3, which is below the DE market average of 18.2. With only modest debt, it’s likely the lack of EPS growth at least partially explains the pessimism implied by the P/E ratio.
Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, ‘In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.’ So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock.
Of course you might be able to find a better stock than Deutsche Post. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
