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Should We Worry About Portland General Electric Company’s (NYSE:POR) P/E Ratio?

The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We’ll look at Portland General Electric Company’s (NYSE:POR) P/E ratio and reflect on what it tells us about the company’s share price. Portland General Electric has a price to earnings ratio of 21.5, based on the last twelve months. In other words, at today’s prices, investors are paying $21.5 for every $1 in prior year profit.

View our latest analysis for Portland General Electric

How Do I Calculate A Price To Earnings Ratio?

The formula for P/E is:

Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)

Or for Portland General Electric:

P/E of 21.5 = $49.43 ÷ $2.3 (Based on the year 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. Earnings growth means that in the future the ‘E’ will be higher. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. A lower P/E should indicate the stock is cheap relative to others — and that may attract buyers.

Portland General Electric’s earnings per share were pretty steady over the last year. But over the longer term (5 years) earnings per share have increased by 6.0%.

How Does Portland General Electric’s P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

The P/E ratio indicates whether the market has higher or lower expectations of a company. As you can see below Portland General Electric has a P/E ratio that is fairly close for the average for the electric utilities industry, which is 21.3.

NYSE:POR PE PEG Gauge December 13th 18
NYSE:POR PE PEG Gauge December 13th 18

That indicates that the market expects Portland General Electric will perform roughly in line with other companies in its industry. If the company has better than average prospects, then the market might be underestimating it. I inform my view byby checking management tenure and remuneration, among other things.

Remember: P/E Ratios Don’t Consider The Balance Sheet

The ‘Price’ in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings.

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).

Is Debt Impacting Portland General Electric’s P/E?

Portland General Electric’s net debt is 50% of its market cap. 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 Bottom Line On Portland General Electric’s P/E Ratio

Portland General Electric has a P/E of 21.5. That’s higher than the average in the US market, which is 17.2. With a bit of debt, but a lack of recent growth, it’s safe to say the market is expecting improved profit performance from the company, in the next few years.

Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. If the reality for a company is better than it expects, you can make money by buying and holding for the long term. So this free visual report on analyst forecasts could hold they key to an excellent investment decision.

Of course you might be able to find a better stock than Portland General Electric. 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.

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