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What are the Top 10 Fortune 500 companies with a low price-earnings ratio that has remained consistent over the last 5yrs?
The top 10 Fortune 500 companies with a low price-earnings (P/E) ratio that has stayed consistent over the last five years are:
The difference in the price-earnings ratio of all 10 companies is less than one, meaning that although the P/E ratio fluctuated along with each company's stock price and profits over the five years between 2013 and 2018, it remained fairly consistent, and ended up deviating by less than one. In addition, the price-earnings ratio for these 10 companies does not exceed 15.42, which according to financial experts is considered low. However, all reports I located indicated that other metrics, including company growth rates and the industry market or sector are important to examine along with the price-earnings ratio.
The P/E ratio information for these 10 companies has been entered on the "Top 10" tab of the attached spreadsheet.
Methodology
There was no precompiled source that listed the top 10 Fortune 500 companies with low price-earnings ratios that have remained consistent over the last five years. Therefore, to truly find the top 10, I used YCharts, an "investments decision-making platform" that includes the annual price-earnings ratios for the majority of the companies listed on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. Using these price-earning ratios from 2013 to 2018, I calculated the difference in ratios to determine how consistent the price-earnings ratios have been for each company over the last five years. All 500 companies are listed on the "Fortune 500" tab of the attached spreadsheet.
Please note: companies that sell insurance products generally do not have a price-earnings ratio, so those companies are indicated by "N/A" on the attached spreadsheet. Likewise, there are some companies, including Staples and Whole Foods that have been acquired since the 2017 Fortune 500 list was published and no longer have price-earnings ratios listed. These are also indicated by "N/A" on the spreadsheet.
From here, to narrow the results down from 500. I identified the 32 companies with a price-earnings ratio of +/- 1 over the five-year period. These companies are listed on the "Companies With +/- 1 PE Ratio" tab. Finally, I culled the list even further by identifying the 10 companies that currently have the lowest price-earnings ratio (as of January 29, 2018). These 10 companies are listed on the "Top 10" tab.
Conclusion
According to price-earnings ratios over the past five years, the Fortune 500 company with the lowest price-earnings ratio that has remained consistent is TravelCenters of America, as its P/E ratio has deviated by just 0.818 and is currently sitting at 7.712. Genesis Healthcare is in second place, with a P/E ratio difference of 0.641 between 2013 and 2018, and a current ratio of 9.796.