Price/Book Value

The Price-to-book ratio, or P/B ratio, is a financial ratio used to compare a company's book value to its current market price. Book value is an accounting term denoting the portion of the company held by the shareholders; in other words, the company's total assets less its total liabilities. The calculation can be performed in two ways but the result should be the same each way. In the first way, the company's market capitalization can be divided by the company's total book value from its balance sheet. The second way, using per-share values, is to divide the company's current share price by the book value per share (i.e. its book value divided by the number of outstanding shares).

As with most ratios, be aware this varies a fair amount by industry. Industries that require higher infrastructure capital (for each dollar of profit) will usually trade at P/B much lower than the P/B of (e.g.) consulting firms. P/B ratios are commonly used for comparison of banks, because most assets and liabilities of banks are constantly valued at market values. P/B ratios do not, however, directly provide any information on the ability of the firm to generate profits or cash for shareholders.

This ratio also gives some idea of whether an investor is paying too much for what would be left if the company went bankrupt immediately. For companies in distress the book value is usually calculated without the intangible assets that would have no resale value. In such cases P/B should also be calculated on a 'diluted' basis, because stock options may well vest on sale of the company or change of control or firing of management.

P/B ratio also known as the "price/equity ratio" (which should not be confused with P/E or price/earnings ratio).Price/book was more popular in the age of smokestacks and steel. That's because it works best with a company that has a lot of hard assets like factories or ore reserves. It is also good at reflecting the value of banks and insurance companies that have a lot of financial assets.

But in today's economy many of the hottest companies rely heavily on intellectual assets that have relatively low book values, which give them artificially high price/book ratios. The other drawback to book value is that it often reflects what an asset was worth when it was bought, not the current market value. So it is an imprecise measure even in the best case.

But the P/B ratio does have its strengths. Like the P/E ratio, it is simple to compute and easy to understand, making it a good way to compare stocks across a broad array of old-line industries. It also gives you a quick look at how the market is valuing assets vs. earnings. Finally, because assets are assets in any country, book-value comparisons work around the world. That's not true of a P/E ratio since earnings are strongly affected by different sets of accounting rules.