Plain-English definitions of every metric and idea behind the rankings, from the ratios in the tables to the concepts the five investors were built on. No jargon left unexplained.
The share price divided by earnings per share. It tells you how many years of today's profit you are paying for: a P/E of 15 means the price equals fifteen years of current earnings. A low P/E can mean a bargain or a business in trouble; a high one can mean overpriced or fast-growing. SageRanks shows P/E for reference but ranks on the PEG instead.
The share price divided by book value per share (assets minus liabilities, per share). Below 1.0 means the market values the company at less than its accounting net worth. It is the cornerstone of deep-value investing and the heaviest weight in Graham's lens, though it flatters asset-heavy businesses and punishes asset-light ones.
The P/E divided by the earnings growth rate. It answers what you pay for each unit of growth: a P/E of 20 is cheap for a company growing 20% a year (PEG 1.0) and expensive for one growing 10% (PEG 2.0). Around 1.0 is fair value, below 1.0 a potential bargain. It is the master metric of Lynch's GARP approach.
Earnings divided by price, the inverse of the P/E. A 6% earnings yield is a P/E of about 16.7. Because it is expressed as a percentage, you can compare a stock's profit return directly against a government bond. It is the cheap pillar of Greenblatt's Magic Formula.
A company's assets minus its liabilities, as recorded on the balance sheet. Per share, it is the accounting net worth behind each share. It is a solid anchor for asset-heavy businesses like banks and industrials, and a poor one for software or brands whose real worth is intangible and barely appears on the books.
A fair-value ceiling from Benjamin Graham: the square root of 22.5 × earnings per share × book value per share. The 22.5 comes from combining his two rules, a P/E under 15 and a P/B under 1.5, which multiply together to 22.5. A price above the Graham Number breaches his margin of safety.
Net profit divided by shareholders' equity. It measures how efficiently a company turns the owners' capital into profit. Sustained high ROE is the fingerprint of a quality business and the heart of Buffett's lens. One caution: a high ROE can be manufactured with debt rather than earned through quality, so it needs context.
Revenue minus the direct cost of goods sold, as a percent of revenue. Fat, stable gross margins signal pricing power: the ability to charge more without losing customers, which is a classic sign of a moat. The exception proves the rule, cost leaders like Costco run thin margins yet enjoy enormous moats.
A durable competitive advantage that protects a business from rivals the way a moat protects a castle: a beloved brand, a network that grows more useful as it grows, a low-cost scale position, or switching costs that lock customers in. The wider and longer-lasting the moat, the longer a company can earn high returns. Central to Buffett's thinking.
The rate at which a company's top-line sales are increasing. It is the raw material of every growth story and the one genuinely growth-focused signal in Fisher's lens. Growth is only worth paying for when the price has not already run ahead of it, which is what the PEG ratio checks.
An approach that refuses to choose between growth and value: buy growing companies, but only when the price has not caught up with the growth. Peter Lynch popularised it, and the PEG ratio is its yardstick. It sits between deep value and pure growth investing.
How much a stock moves relative to the overall market. Beta 1.0 moves in line with the index; below 1.0 is steadier and defensive; above 1.0 is more volatile. It is a rough stability filter, not a measure of business quality, and a low beta is favoured by the more conservative lenses.
A momentum gauge from 0 to 100 based on recent price moves, usually over 14 days. Above 70 is often called overbought and below 30 oversold. SageRanks ranks it by distance from 50, treating the calm middle, neither hot nor cold, as the best place to be.
The gap between the current share price and the average analyst price target, expressed as a percent. Positive upside means analysts, on average, expect the price to rise. Consensus lags fresh news, so treat it as one input among many rather than a verdict.
The mix of buy, hold and sell ratings that analysts assign a stock, and how tightly they agree. A firm buy consensus is a supporting signal; wide disagreement is a caution in its own right. SageRanks shows the buy percentage and how far the ratings scatter.
Benjamin Graham's core discipline: never pay full price for your own estimate of a company's worth, so the gap absorbs your mistakes, your bad luck and the plain fact that the future is unknowable. If a business is worth $100 a share, insist on paying $70.
What a business is genuinely worth based on its assets and its future earnings, as opposed to the fluctuating price the market quotes for it. Value investing is the art of buying below intrinsic value and waiting for the gap to close.
Graham's allegory for the stock market: imagine a business partner who turns up every day and offers to buy your shares or sell you his at a price that swings with his mood. His mood is your opportunity, not your instruction, and you are never obliged to trade. The market is there to serve you, not to inform you.
Joel Greenblatt's deliberately simple system: rank every company on return on capital (is it a good business) and earnings yield (is it cheap), buy the top of the combined list, hold for a year, then rebalance. Its power is that it removes human judgment and emotion. See Greenblatt.
Buying shares for less than their intrinsic worth and waiting for the gap to close. Founded by Benjamin Graham in the 1930s and refined by Warren Buffett, who evolved it from buying anything cheap toward paying a fair price for wonderful companies.
Every SageRanks ranking is computed within a single index. A #1 means best of that group by that philosophy, not a global buy signal. A deep-value #1 in an expensive market is merely the least expensive of a pricey bunch. Read the full method on the methodology page.
An absolute threshold an investor insisted on, such as Graham's P/B under 1.5 or Buffett's ROE over 15%. On SageRanks, breaching one does not change a company's rank but flags a warning, because a company can rank well within its group yet still break the legend's rule. The strict-screen toggle hides the companies that breach.