How Trend and P/E in context are worked out

1. Trend

Where the stock’s 1-year price return ranks among the 425 covered stocks that have one: the 90th percentile beat 90% of them. A stock listed under a year ago has none.

percentile = (stocks with a lower return + ½ × ties) ÷ (stocks ranked − 1) × 100, within 1–99

Tested at every month-end since Oct 2022, past-year return (with or without the latest month) was the only simple signal that ranked the next 3 months’ returns (rank correlation, 0 = no link):

Useful across many stocks, small for any one. Today’s covered companies scored back to 2022, which flatters it a little.

2. P/E in context

Today’s P/E (trailing twelve months) beside two yardsticks.

• Its own past: its P/E at every month-end since June 2022, on the latest reported year’s profit. The shaded band is the middle half; below it reads Below its usual range, above it Above its usual range. Needs 24 months with a profit.
• Its industry: the median P/E of covered stocks in its primary industry, the one where it is most central to the supply chain. A company with no direct place in an industry is compared within its policy or its Nifty 50 bracket (SBI with Financial Services). Needs 5 stocks with a P/E (3 in a Nifty 50 bracket). It can differ from Screener’s median in the Fundamentals tab.

P/E then = market cap then ÷ net profit of the latest year reported by then

3. What they don’t do

• Neither is a recommendation, a target or a forecast; a low P/E alone did not predict returns among covered stocks.
• Past P/Es ignore share-count changes, and use today’s restated results.

4. Worked example