Introduction
Any investment made in any stock is of prime importance due to the benefits that will accrue from holding stock. In the case of the joint-stock companies, the people invest in the companies in the form of shares. Investors get the benefit of the sharing of the profit from companies while companies get the required capital. Usually, the investors are unable to differentiate between the price of a share and the profitability of the same share. Some companies’ shares may be very expensive but have very low returns while others may be cheap and have very high returns. The companies with a higher ratio of profit as compared to the amount invested should be preferred but not necessarily on the price of the share in the stock market.
Investors should look for information from investment advisors and from the books to evaluate the ideal investment option. The history of a company is very important to an investor as they can know about the trend of the company which can be used to predict the company’s sustainability and estimate future outcomes of the investment. Most investors use financial ratios in gauging the performance of a company. Therefore, it is most for them to form a decision about the viability of any investment based on the financial ratios (Fischer and Jordan, 2007).
In valuing the company, various ratios are used to determine whether the company share is worth purchasing or holding. The result is usually comparable with the industry rates under which the company is operating. The ratios that are used in valuing a company include price-earnings ratio, dividend yield, dividend cover, capital-gearing ratios and earnings yield.
Performance
The ratios of this company have been obtained from finance yahoo while others have been calculated using data from Hemscott as shown in the table below:
The price-earnings ratio of the company is 12.5, which is worse compared to the market leader ratio of 2,663.65 (Hemscott, 2010). This ratio shows the earning power of the company, and the company is not a good earner although it has a positive ratio. The EPS of the company went up by a significant amount, which confirms what the annual report reporting. However, the earnings ratio suffers a lot of limitations. It depends on arbitrary set account policies by the management of a company (Brealey, Myers and Marcus, 2007). Therefore, it will not provide an objective valuation of the company. It also depends on the profits, which at times are quantified using noncash items.
The company’s dividend covers 4.14 times which is less than the market leader. Dividend cover shows how many times dividends will be paid from annual earnings of the company. From the earnings of this company, it is clear that annual earning can pay dividends 4.14 times. To the investor, this is a good result because he will be assured dividends four times from one year’s earnings.
Dividend yield is the dividend for the period expressed as a percentage of market share. It shows the actual return of the investor on the market value of a stock. In this case it is 1.93%, which this a low figure and it means that the company is not giving their shareholders a good pay for holding the shares of the company.
The earning yield is 8% and it is not a bad rate for risk-taking investors. The decline in the earnings yield and dividend yield is only natural considering the increase in the share price coupled with the consistent dividend issued by the corporation.
The capital gearing ratio shows debt 78.66% of equity. It means for every 100 dollars of equity there are 78.66 dollars of debt. It is a very good rate but is higher than what market leaders have.
Recommendation and conclusion
In terms of Marketability, one can say that the price-earnings ratio is lower than the previous year, which would make it more apt for buying into based on the P/E ratio alone. Dividend cover and yield suggest that the investment in the stock will provide a low return. The company has also a high capital gearing ratio to the market.
Reference List
Brealey, R., Myers, S., & Marcus, A. 2007. Fundamentals of Corporate Finance. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Fischer, D. & Jordan, R. 2007. Security Analysis and Portfolio Management. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited.
Hemscott. 2010. Hill & Smith Holdings Plc. Hemscott. Web.
Finance yahoo. 2010. Hill & Smith Holdings Plc. Finance yahoo. Web.