PE Ratio differences on different sites

Hi, looking at PE ratios and seeing hugely different figures on different sites i’m researching on. For example, Campbell Soup, on Yahoo Finance main Summary page shows PE Ratio of 9.05. However, if you go to the Statistics page it shows it as 25.12. Also, if you go to Google Finance it gives it as 24.91. Just to add more confusion the Trading 212 app says the PE Ratio is 20.47!

I can understand a small 0.1 or 0.2 variation, but not the difference of 9.05 to 24.91. The Yahoo value of 9.05 says it is P/E Ratio (TTM), and i understand Google also uses TTM so i wouldn’t expect a difference. Do these websites have many errors that people have seen or can we generally trust them? I’ve done my own calculations, and I get 9.05, but then I question are the other Financials correct such as preferred Dividends figures (for the EPS calculation).

If anyone has any experience of this, i’d be very grateful.

I’ve came across this and I think they all update at different times, some faster than others.

Best way maybe to do a quick calc on it yourself.

1 Like

:mag: So T212 takes its info from Reuters.

P/E Excl. Extra Items (Annual) 24.91
P/E Normalized (Annual) 20.47
P/E Incl. Extra Items (TTM) 9.05

Excellent, thanks Phil. That basically shows the why some list the 9.05 and some list the Normalized Annual. The confusing thing was some sites list the 24.91 figure as TTM, which it doesnt appear to be. Or some quote “P/E Ratio 9.05”, which technically I think is incorrect and should be listed as “P/E Ratio (TTM) 9.05”. I think this clears things up for me, i’ll have to go through all the other companies and see if this adds up for them all. Thanks again both.

1 Like

Cheers Phil, I never knew 212 took the info from Reuters!

1 Like

I’m just seeing where that P/E on the main info is taken from.

I think with Campbell it’s coincidentally 20.47 and not just pulling in the P/E Normalised LFY


1 Like

It’s a good tip just to show how different financial apps or websites give mismatching data (some use TTM for one company and then don’t use TTM for another company). Link below explains this also. That Reuters link you sent is excellent and gives the most info, fully title correctly.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/1043751-the-not-so-standard-trailing-p-e-ratio

What’s Campbell’s current Earnings Per Share? 2.37

ASK is 48.51

48.51 / 2.37

=

20.4683544304

So the 20.47 checks out.

1 Like

On Yahoo Finance, says 5.36 (TTM). Which i think I calculated earlier is the value without any dividend removed, so that is 0 in the calculation. So 5.36 appeared to be correct.

I’ve had the same problem some time ago.
I agree… it must do something with the sites’ updates.

I’ve done some in-depth analysis of my stocks using quarter earning reports. The data from 212 is very good and fortunately a much more simplified version of some of the extended financials sent out from companies. It’s a wonder where this information is coming from and who takes the time to break down the key figures and upload them.

Point being is that after using the data and calculating my own PE ratios from the earnings and normalised EPS figures, the PE ratio seems fairly accurate, with just a minor variation from my result. Take these for example:

LON:SONG - 19.51 versus 19.26 from 212, 39.49 from Google/ 28.05 from Yahoo
CMRE - 12.85 versus 12.85 from 212, nothing from Google/Yahoo
ROCK - 29.25 versus 31.33 from 212, 39.49 from Google, 39.43 from Yahoo
BBL - 21.54 versus 21.98 from Google, 212 is lacking the data from the last earnings so I can’t compare.

The online earning reports are pretty accurate to the earning reports, but I haven’t be able to figure out how they have calculated the P/E from the stated figures. If they are sourcing the information externally, then it may be that bits of information are excluded. The outstanding shares are given in value, not the number of shares, so this introduces an additional area of calculation and inaccuracy.

I’m surprised Google/Yahoo are so off. Their historical data is limited to stock prices, dividends etc, not PE ratios. This suggests it’s not something that is updated very well. This means you would have to go through each earnings report to find the information to backtrack the P/E ratio. Why do this, you may ask? It would mean back-tracking the historic earnings versus stock price, which is useful in estimating the future growth of the company by how much the market is willing to pay for the degree of growth.

Overall, I’m relieved that my PE calculation is so on par with 212. I can be a lot more comfortable with the data when reviewing a stock, which saves a lot of time in my research.

One feature that would be amazing, is if the data could be downloadable, or provided in a chart to compare the patterns to the stock price.

1 Like

I would always verify a few different sources.
Some could be basing it off year end, other MRQ or TTM.
This could be an issue if your screening for sure.
I would expect small differences here and there but not large ones as yiy described.

I actually described the opposite. The differences between the results of the earning reports and 212 seem to be quite minimal and I think this is more of a rounding off issue. The major differences tend to be in the latest earning reports, as there is quite a delay between the data appearing on 212, although I have noticed the P/E ratio tends to change quite rapidly on earnings dates, despite the analytics not appearing. This suggests the earnings reports are being accounted for, but there is a delay in the report data being uploaded.

My point is that assuming my calculations are correct, 212 seem to be doing a better job of keeping the P/E ratio up to date than other services.

One improvement to the system would be the ability to download their reports from the 212 server, as presented on the site. As I have equations set up in a spreadsheets to calculate my ratios from the values I enter, so a download option would provide the data in a consistent format that I could import into my spreadsheet for it to calculate these ratios automatically. It would save me hours of work.