The Secret to Valuing Stocks

When determining how to value stocks, there's one ratio that can give you all the answers. [Shield] AN OXFORD CLUB PUBLICATION [Liberty Through Wealth]( [View in browser]( SPONSORED ["My First Impression Was 'You've GOT to Be KIDDING Me!'"]( - Bill O'Reilly [Billl O'Reilly Clicks]( In this jaw-dropping video clip, Bill O'Reilly hears [THE FOUR SHOCKING WORDS]( that will help [SUPERCHARGE AMERICANS' RETIREMENTS]( in 2022 and beyond... REGARDLESS of divisive politics... record-high debt... even the pandemic! [Click Here to Watch Now (and Get the Four Shocking Words)]( EDITOR'S NOTE Today is a big day in Liberty Through Wealth's history. This is our first official Saturday article! And to kick the weekend off right, we're featuring an article by Oxford Club Founding Member Mark Ford. Mark has spent decades perfecting his portfolio. Over that time, he's discovered a simple strategy for valuing stocks, and we're sharing it with you today. And speaking of value... just as Alexander Green predicted, value stocks are outperforming growth stocks. This is good news for investors, as value stocks tend to pay dividends. And luckily, many high-quality, dividend-paying stocks are currently trading at a discount... With Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld's [FREE Ultimate Dividend Package]( not only will you learn how to lock in an ultra-safe 9% yield, but you'll also learn about the safest 8% dividend in the world. Studies have even shown that dividend stocks have [outperformed the broad market by 222%]( over the past 60 years. [Learn more about this completely free opportunity here.]( - Madeline St.Clair, Assistant Managing Editor THE SHORTEST WAY TO A RICH LIFE [My Simple System for Knowing When to Buy a Stock]( [Mark Ford | Founding Member | The Oxford Club]( [Mark Ford]( A reader wrote: I've read your strategy for buying income-producing real estate. You determine whether the asking price is fair or not with a simple formula: eight times gross rent. What I want to know is if you have such a simple formula for determining the value of a particular stock, both for making the initial purchase and for reinvesting the dividends? Good question! Determining a "fair" price for a dividend stock is a bit more complicated than it is when you are valuing income-producing real estate. For one thing, businesses are more complex and dynamic than real estate properties. And the market in which rental properties exist tends to be local, which means easier to understand. Plus, rental income itself tends to be relatively stable. Rents can move up or down, but this happens gradually over a period of years, not months or even days, which can happen with stocks. Using [the "eight times gross rent" calculation]( makes it easy for me to know when not to buy. The only really bad rental property I bought in the last 15 years was the one I got talked into paying something like 15 times gross rent for. SPONSORED [Do you own gold?]( [Somebody recently decided to buy a LOT of gold.]( And I think I know why... It's all about a meeting that's scheduled for March 16, 2022. If you own gold (even just a few ounces of it), you've got to see what's happening. The big announcement is just days away. [Click here now.]( There isn't a calculation nearly this simple and accurate for deciding when to buy stocks. But there are ways to value stocks that are favored by people who do stock analysis for a living. Two of the simplest are the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and the price-to-revenues (P/R) ratio. The P/E ratio compares the price of a company's stock with that company's profits (or earnings). The P/R ratio compares the price of a company's stock with that company's revenues. The logic behind both is the same: If the company's current ratio is higher than its historical average, it is deemed expensive. If it's lower than its average, it's deemed to be selling at a discount. Take Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), for example. Its current P/E ratio is 27. This is four points higher than its P/E for the last five years (23), and it is also four points higher than the P/E ratio of a similar company, Mondelēz International (Nasdaq: MDLZ) (23). A great time to buy Coke was (I'm not bragging) when I bought it in 2015. Back then, it had a P/E ratio of only 20, which was, as you can see, relatively cheap. Dan Ferris, editor of Extreme Value and a colleague of mine, did a study on Coke's fluctuating values about a dozen years ago. I don't remember the details, but I remember his conclusion: Even with a world-dominating brand like Coke, it does make a difference when you buy it. You should look to buy at or below its long-term value, whatever valuation method you use. I rely primarily on the P/E ratio to value the "priciness" of a stock because of its simplicity and relative reliability. But I always ask Dominick, my broker, to take a deeper dive into evaluations when he thinks it's merited. Like using the gross rent multiplier method for valuing rental real estate, using the P/E ratio for stocks can make it difficult or even impossible to buy more stock in good companies for years and years. When the market is generally overpriced, P/E ratios are generally overpriced. And this is especially so when your portfolio consists of large, market-dominating companies. There are times when you have to wait months or even years before the price of one of these great stocks comes into a safe buying range. During these times, the cash portion of your stock account will get larger. You may be tempted to buy stock even if the P/E ratio is high - especially if there are reasons to believe that the stock market or one of your stocks is going to move up. When this happens, I sometimes ask Dominick if he can find any similarly large and dominating company that I don't own and whose stock is NOT overvalued from a P/E perspective. If he can, we talk about whether it makes sense to expand the portfolio to include this extra stock. There have been a few times when I've invested the cash in my stock account on some other type of investment - real estate, private equity or private debt. But generally, I'm comfortable sitting with cash since, because of how I diversify my portfolio, that cash is never more than 5% or 6% of my net investable wealth. I'm not suggesting that this way of valuing stocks makes sense for everyone or even anyone reading this essay. I'm answering a good question by explaining what I do and have been doing for many years. So far, it's been working well for me. Good investing, Mark [Leave a Comment]( JOIN THE CONVERSATION [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [Email Share](mailto:?subject=A%20great%20piece%20from%20Liberty%20Through%20Wealth...&body=From%20Liberty%20Through%20Wealth:%0D%0A%0D%0AWhen%20determining%20how%20to%20value%20stocks,%20there's%20one%20ratio%20that%20can%20give%20you%20all%20the%20answers.%0D%0A%0D [Email Share](mailto:?subject=A%20great%20piece%20from%20Liberty%20Through%20Wealth...&body=From%20Liberty%20Through%20Wealth:%0D%0A%0D%0AWhen%20determining%20how%20to%20value%20stocks,%20there's%20one%20ratio%20that%20can%20give%20you%20all%20the%20answers.%0D%0A%0D MORE FROM LIBERTY THROUGH WEALTH [Budgeting]( [How to Maximize Your Income to Grow Your Net Worth]( [Buy or Bye?]( [How to Play the Soaring Price of Oil]( [Flying Kites]( [Adapting Neanderthal Tendencies to a World of Abundance]( [Alibaba]( [How Charlie Munger Just Got Hustled]( SPONSORED [WARNING: Tech Stock Crash INCOMING?]( [Businesses Falling Behind]( Zoom... 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