Progressive shares fell by -6.8% during the day's afternoon session, and are now trading at a price of $138.11. Is it time to buy the dip? To better answer that question, it's essential to check if the market is valuing the company's shares fairly in terms of its earnings and equity levels.
The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, provides personal and commercial auto, personal residential and commercial property, general liability, and other specialty property-casualty insurance products and related services in the United States. The company belongs to the Finance sector, which has an average price to earnings (P/E) ratio of 14.34 and an average price to book (P/B) ratio of 1.57. In contrast, Progressive has a trailing 12 month P/E ratio of 116.1 and a P/B ratio of 5.2.
P/B ratios are calculated by dividing the company's market value by its equity's book value. Equity refers to all of the company's assets minus its liabilities. Traditionally, a P/B ratio of around 1 shows that a company is fairly valued, but owing to consistently higher valuations in the modern era, investors generally compare against sector averages.
When we divideProgressive's P/E ratio by its expected five-year EPS growth rate, we obtain a PEG ratio of 0.81, which indicates that the market is undervaluing the company's projected growth (a PEG ratio of 1 indicates a fairly valued company). Your analysis of the stock shouldn't end here. Rather, a good PEG ratio should alert you that it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at the stock.
