Equities: Data Definitions: Snapshot: Company Snapshot

 Performance

Growth of $10,000

The Growth of $10,000 graph shows a stock's performance based on how $10,000 invested in the stock would have grown over time. The growth of $10,000 begins on the date of the stock's IPO, or the first year listed on the graph, whichever is appropriate. Located alongside the stock's graph line is a line that represents the growth of $10,000 for the S&P 500 index. The third line represents the stock’s industry. These lines allow investors to compare the performance of the stock with the performance of the S&P 500 index and the stock’s industry. Both lines are plotted on a logarithmic scale, so that identical percentage changes in the value of an investment have the same vertical distance on the graph.

For example, the vertical distance between $10,000 and $20,000 is the same as the distance between $20,000 and $40,000 because both represent a 100% increase in investment value. This provides a more accurate representation of performance than would a simple arithmetic graph. The graphs are scaled so that the full length of the vertical axis represents a tenfold increase in investment value. For securities with returns that have exhibited greater than a tenfold increase over the period shown in the graph, the vertical axis has been compressed accordingly.  


Total Return % (Annual & YTD)

Total returns are calculated on a calendar-year and year-to-date basis. Total return includes both capital appreciation and dividends. The year-to-date return is updated daily.


+/- Industry and +/- S&P 500

These benchmarks give the investor a point of reference for evaluating a stock's performance. The +/- (Calendar Year) figure indicates the amount by which a stock over- or underperformed its benchmark during a given calendar year.

 

 Key Stats

Last Close

The closing price of the previous trading day.


Market Cap $Mil

The total equity market value of the company, expressed in millions of dollars. It equals shares outstanding times the stock price. It is updated daily.


Sales $Mil

The sum of a company's revenues over the trailing 12 months (TTM). Revenues are the total sales reported by a company. This information is found in the company’s most recent 10-Q report.


Morningstar Style Box

The Equity Style Box is a visual tool that can give a general idea of a stock's size and riskiness. The nine-box matrix displays a stock's market capitalization in relation to its price multiples. Morningstar calculates this figure in-house on a monthly basis.

The Equity Style Box is a great diversification tool. If you are looking for stocks and want to be sure they cover a wide spectrum of the market, a quick glance at the style box will indicate whether the stocks have small or large market capitalizations, and whether they are trading above or below earnings.


Industry

The company's primary area of business.

This field provides an easy way to search for stocks within a certain area of business. When making comparisons among stocks, it can be helpful to compare companies within the same area of business. Morningstar also provides percentile rankings within the company's industry for data such as net margin, revenue growth, earnings growth, and total return.

The information is gathered from the description-of business section of the company's 10-K form. The company is then coded using the North American Industrial Classification System. More information about the NAICS is available by calling 1-800-553-6847 to purchase a technical manual, visiting the Internet site at www.census.gov/naics, or calling an industry classification expert at 1-888-75NAICS.


Stock Sector

Information Economy

Service Economy

Manufacturing Economy


Stock Types

Morningstar divides most stocks into eight type designations—High Yield, Distressed, Hard Asset, Cyclical, Slow Growth, Classic Growth, Aggressive Growth, and Speculative Growth—each of which defines a broad category of investment characteristics. Stocks are assigned to a type based on objective financial criteria, so stocks of the same type have similar economic fundamentals. Every stock has individual idiosyncrasies, but in general, when evaluating investments, many of the same concerns and evaluation methods will apply across the stocks in one type.

Stock Types offer an easy way to narrow down the stock universe to those best filling specific investment needs. Stock Types also help you quickly determine the diversification level of portfolios. For instance, you might discover that most of your holdings are categorized as Speculative Growth. If you want to lessen the portfolio’s risk, you could invest in other types of stocks.

You may notice that some stocks in our database do not have Stock Types. This is only because they do not meet the criteria needed to fit into any of the Stock Type categories. A listing of N/A (Not Applicable) under Stock Type is no reflection on the performance or underlying value of the stock itself.


Morningstar Stock Grades

The Morningstar stock-grading system consists of three grades, one in each of the following categories: Growth, Profitability, and Financial Health. They’re meant to be a quick way to get a handle on a company’s fundamentals.

All grades are based on relative rankings of companies within their sector. We use the 10 Morningstar sectors. For example, a company in the financial sector that receives an "A" in growth is a company that ranks near the top of the financial sector in terms of growth. We use sector comparisons to make sure we’re comparing apples to apples.

The grades are based solely on the numbers reported by the company in its SEC filings. Due to accounting conventions, however, these grades may or may not reflect the underlying economic reality, and investors should view the grades as a starting point for analysis rather than a definitive judgement on the company. No Morningstar analyst makes a subjective call as to what grade a company should get.

Distribution of grades: Within each sector for each of the three categories (growth, profitability, and financial health), we give equal numbers of companies As, Bs, Cs, and Ds, while the bottom 10% get Fs.

Note that there’s no grade inflation. A grade of "C" means a company ranks right around the middle of its sector. It’s therefore very tough to get straight "As."

All information used to calculate the grades comes from Morningstar’s internal equities database.

Growth Grade

The growth grade consists of three components, which are weighted to arrive at an overall growth grade:

Profitability Grade

The profitability grade consists of three components, which are weighted to arrive at an overall profitability grade:

Financial Health Grade

The financial-health grade consists of two components, which are weighted to arrive at an overall financial-health grade.

 

 Valuation

Price/Earnings

A stock's current price divided by the company's trailing 12-month earnings per share.


Forward P/E

A stock's current price divided by the mean EPS estimate for the current fiscal year. EPS Estimates are provided by Reuters Estimates.

This ratio gives some indication of how cheap or expensive a stock is compared with consensus earnings estimates. The lower the Forward P/E, the cheaper the stock.


Price/Book
A stock's current price divided by the company's most recently reported book value/share.


Price/Cash Flow
A stock's current price divided by the trailing 12-month cash flow per share.


Price/Sales
A stock's current price divided by the company's trailing 12-month sales per share.


Dividend Yield %
The dividends per share of the company over the trailing one-year period as a percentage of the current stock price.

 

 Growth

Sales

The trailing one- and three-year annualized growth rates in a company's revenues, or sales.
Revenue growth is the best gauge of how rapidly a company's core business is growing.


Net Income

The trailing one- and three-year annualized growth rates in a company's net income.
Net income growth shows how rapidly a company has been able to boost its "bottom line." Growth investors might look for companies with net income growth of, say, 20% or more. If net income growth is NMF, it means the company lost money in one of the years used in the growth-rate calculation, making any growth rate Not Meaningful.


EPS

The trailing one- and three-year annualized growth rates in a company's earnings per share.
EPS growth shows how rapidly a company has been able to boost its "bottom line" on a per-share basis. Growth investors might look for companies with EPS growth of, say, 20% or more. If EPS growth is NMF, it means the company lost money in one of the years used in the growth-rate calculation, making any growth rate Not Meaningful.


Equity/Share

The trailing one- and three-year annualized growth rate per share in a company's shareholders' equity, or book value. Equity per share represents the net-asset value backing up each share of the company's stock. Growth in equity per share is therefore one of the key variables in determining if a company is increasing shareholder wealth over time. Note, too, that because it's expressed on a per-share basis, equity growth per share takes into account dilution from new-share issuances.

Equity is a company's total assets minus its total liabilities-in other words, what's left over for shareholders. Equity growth per share shows how quickly shareholders' stake in the company is growing.


Dividends

The trailing one- and three-year annualized growth rates in dividends per share.
Increasing dividends are usually a signal that management has confidence in the company's continued earnings power. Dividend growth-especially growth that has been steady from year to year-is a good sign for those investing for income.

 

 Profitability

ROA %

The percentage a company earns on its total assets. The calculation is the trailing 12 months' net income divided by the most recently reported total assets. The resulting figure is multiplied by 100. In comparison, the industry average and S&P 500 are shown for the most recent fiscal year.

The company's net income is found in the income statement. The company's total assets come from its balance sheet.


ROE %

The percentage a company earns on its total equity. The calculation is the trailing 12 months' net income divided by the most recently reported book value. The resulting figure is multiplied by 100. In comparison, the industry average and S&P 500 are shown for the most recent fiscal year.

Return on equity shows how much profit a company generates on the money shareholders and creditors (such as banks and bondholders) have invested in the company. The mission of any company is to earn a high return on equity.

The company's net income is found in the income statement. The company's book value is taken from the company's balance sheet.


Net Margin %

This figure is a measure of profitability. It is equal to annual net income divided by revenues over the trailing 12 months. The resulting figure is then multiplied by 100. In comparison, the industry average and S&P 500 are shown for the most recent fiscal year.

This figure gives a more accurate picture of a company's recent performance than the most-recent annual net margin figure, which may be more than a year old.

The company's net income and revenues are found in the income statement of its annual report and recent 10-Qs.


Asset Turnover

This figure represents how many dollars in revenue a company has generated per each dollar of assets. It is calculated by dividing total revenues for the period by total assets for the same period. In comparison, the industry average and S&P 500 are shown for the most recent fiscal year.

Asset turnover can give an indication of how efficient a company is. A high asset turnover, which expresses how many times a company sells - or turns over - its assets in a year is a sign of high efficiency.


Financial Leverage

Financial leverage is defined as total assets divided by total shareholders' equity. The higher the ratio, the more debt a company uses in its capital structure. In comparison, the industry average and S&P 500 are shown for the most recent fiscal year.


Sales/Employee $Thousands

This ratio is the Sales TTM divided by the number of employees. The number is in thousands of dollars.

 

 Earnings Trends

This graph shows whether a company has been able to increase its sales over the past five years, including the trailing 12 months (TTM), and if so, how fast. Each year represents the company’s fiscal year, which may differ from the calendar year. Sales are given in millions of dollars.  

 

 Fund Ownership

Lists the top five mutual fund owners of the stock, ranked by % Shares Held.


% Shares Held

This figure represents the percentage of the total number of shares of a stock held by each mutual fund.


% of Fund Assets

This figure represents the percentage of a mutual fund's assets that are invested in a stock


Star Rating (Morningstar Rating)

Our mutual fund rating that combines return and risk measures to form a comprehensive evaluation, shown for three-, five-, and 10-year time periods, when available. The overall star rating is a weighted average of these three time periods. The Morningstar Star Rating is designed to express the relative attractiveness of a fund's risk/reward profile. To determine a fund's star rating for a given time period, the top 10% of its Morningstar Category receive 5 stars (highest), those falling in the next 22.5% receive 4 stars (above average), a place in the middle 35% earns 3 stars (neutral), those in the next 22.5% receive 2 stars (below average), and the bottom 10% get 1 star (lowest).

 

 Operations

What Does this Company Do?

A description of the company's operations. It is written using information primarily from the company's annual report and form 10-K.


Address, Phone, and Web Site

 Correspondence information to contact the company.


Direct Investment

This information notes whether investors can purchase shares directly from the company. Yes indicates the company allows investors to purchase shares directly, and No indicates that it does not.

Buying stock directly from the company eliminates brokerage fees. Morningstar receives this information from Horizon Publishing Company.


Dividend Reinvestment

Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs) allows investors to automatically reinvest dividends paid in the company's shares. Yes indicates the company does operate a DRIP, No indicates it does not.
Companies with DRIPs may be good choices for beginning investors who are first starting to buy stocks, since these are generally well-established companies. DRIPs are generally meant for long-term investors who will hold a stock for a number of years. Morningstar receives this information from Northstar Financial, Inc.


Employees

This is the number of people employed by the company, usually on the last day of the previous fiscal year. We get this number directly from each company’s 10-K form and/or annual report.