Is ACNB Corporation (NASDAQ:ACNB) Attractive At Its Current PE Ratio?
The content of this article will benefit those of you who are starting to educate yourself about investing in the stock market and want to start learning about core concepts of fundamental analysis on practical examples from today’s market.
ACNB Corporation (NASDAQ:ACNB) is trading with a trailing P/E of 17.5, which is close to the industry average of 17.8. While this makes ACNB appear like a great stock to buy, you might change your mind after I explain the assumptions behind the P/E ratio. In this article, I will explain what the P/E ratio is as well as what you should look out for when using it.
View our latest analysis for ACNB
What you need to know about the P/E ratio
The P/E ratio is one of many ratios used in relative valuation. By comparing a stock’s price per share to its earnings per share, we are able to see how much investors are paying for each dollar of the company’s earnings.
P/E Calculation for ACNB
Price-Earnings Ratio = Price per share ÷ Earnings per share
ACNB Price-Earnings Ratio = $37.03 ÷ $2.114 = 17.5x
On its own, the P/E ratio doesn’t tell you much; however, it becomes extremely useful when you compare it with other similar companies. We preferably want to compare the stock’s P/E ratio to the average of companies that have similar features to ACNB, such as capital structure and profitability. One way of gathering a peer group is to use firms in the same industry, which is what I’ll do. ACNB Corporation (NASDAQ:ACNB) is trading with a trailing P/E of 17.5, which is close to the industry average of 17.8. This multiple is a median of profitable companies of 25 Banks companies in US including Great Basin Financial, CIB Marine Bancshares and Citizens Commerce Bancshares. One could put it like this: the market is pricing ACNB as if it is roughly average for its industry.
Assumptions to watch out for
Before you jump to conclusions it is important to realise that our assumptions rests on two assertions. Firstly, our peer group contains companies that are similar to ACNB. If this isn’t the case, the difference in P/E could be due to other factors. For example, if you compared higher growth firms with ACNB, then its P/E would naturally be lower since investors would reward its peers’ higher growth with a higher price. The second assumption that must hold true is that the stocks we are comparing ACNB to are fairly valued by the market. If this does not hold, there is a possibility that ACNB’s P/E is lower because our peer group is overvalued by the market.
What this means for you:
If your personal research into the stock confirms what the P/E ratio is telling you, it might be a good time to add more of ACNB to your portfolio. But keep in mind that the usefulness of relative valuation depends on whether you are comfortable with making the assumptions I mentioned above. Remember that basing your investment decision off one metric alone is certainly not sufficient. There are many things I have not taken into account in this article and the PE ratio is very one-dimensional. If you have not done so already, I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for ACNB’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for ACNB’s outlook.
Past Track Record: Has ACNB been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of ACNB’s historicals for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
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.
