Many investors believe price to book ratio is a important factor when looking for a bargain in the market. Price To Book Ratio is calculated to compare market price of a stock with its book value.
Price to Book (P/B) ratio is calculated by dividing current market price of the stock by the book value per share. Its also called as market-to-book ratio.
Investors widely used Price to book (P/B) ratio to find out hidden gems which are low priced but has exceptional return potential.
Value investors who buy stocks with low price to book ratios believe they are getting stocks at a price close to the company’s liquidating value. In this way they will be rewarded for not paying high prices for assets.
To calculate, you are first required to find out book value per share or BVPS.
P/B or price to book ratio = market price per share / Book Value Per Share
Book value is also called shareholder’s equity or net worth or net asset of a company. Its calculated by dividing the net assets of a company by average number of shares outstanding.
Net asset is the difference between company’s total asset and total liabilities, which come from the balance sheet.
Book Value Per Share (BVPS) = (total assets – total liabilities ) / average number of shares outstanding
In other words, if the company is liquidated as on the balance sheet date, then after paying all of its liability out of assets, the balance amount remaining would be shareholders equity.
Importance of P/B or Price to Book Ratio
Price to Book ratio indicates whether a share is undervalued or overvalued. For instance, if P/B ratio is less than one, then it indicates that stock of the company is currently trading at lower than the net asset value.
Similarly, if the Price-to-Book ratio (P/B) is more than one, then it indicates that the net asset value per stock of the company is lower than its market rate as investors are expecting the company to create more value in future.
Price to book value ratio also indicates the extra premium you are going to pay to buy a stock in comparison to company’s underlying balance sheet value. If you are expecting any undervalued company’s profit or earnings to go up in future, then you can invest in it to get good return.
Company’s Price to book ratio (P/B) can also be less than one when market expect the earnings to go down or the company is in financial distress or at the time of economic instability.
You should not use Price to Book ratio (P/B) as the only parameter for your investment decisions as low Price to book value does not always mean that the stock is undervalued and you should invest in it. You have to go deeper to analyse the reason for its undervaluation. Analyst might be thinking that the future earnings will go down or it may happen that the valuation of the assets has come down due to market situation.
Example to calculate P/B ratio
Total asset = Rs. 500
Total liability = Rs. 250
Number of shares outstanding = 50
Market price of the share = Rs. 10
To calculate Price to Book ratio, we first have to find out BVPS of the company.
Book Value Per Share (BVPS) = (total asset – total liabilities)/number of shares outstanding = (500-250)/50 = 5
Price to Book ratio (P/B) = market price per stock / BVPS = 10/5 = 2
In our case Price to Book (P/B) ration is 2. This means company’s stock is trading at two time of its net BVPS.
