The Barnard Observer
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Home Picks Figures Great Investors Vault Contact c2003-08 Thomas Barnard
Figures & Comment
OUT OF DATE
Please pay attention to the date of the figure or statistic, our task is to point out important statistics. They may remain important for some time. For example, high insider trading may not result in lower prices until two years later.
S&P 500 Price/Earnings Ratio: 28 (12/22/03)
The average P/E for the S&P 500 is 13-17 depending on time interval and authority consulted. The obvious thing is that by this measure this index is roughly high by double.
Value Line Median Appreciation Potential VLMAP: 40% (12/17/03)
The Value Line Investment Survey maintains a guess of how much the market will increase or decrease over the next 3-5 years. Mark Hulbert of the Hulbert Financial Digest, who tracks the performance of newsletters, claims that Value Line is one of the best. He says that this number has only been at 40% or below 4.3% of the time. But it is not necessarily an immediate signal. The market may go up for a year and then down for a year, and so on. What it is saying, and pretty clearly, is that there is for the forseeable investment future an upper limit.
Thomson Financial Corporate Insiders: 59 to 1 (10/03)
Thomson Financial tallies corporate insider sales to purchases. In October, 2003, this ratio was a stunning $59 of stock sold by insiders for every $1 bought. Because of stock options this ratio is always top heavy, with the average being $12 sold for $1 bought. However, we now have six months of heavy selling with a ratio of 35:1 in September, 29:1 in June, 27:1 in May