Today shares of Booz Allen Hamilton have fallen -6.3%, to a price of $139.92. Since it has an average rating of buy, many investors will be using today as an opportunity to buy the dip. But what if the stock is overvalued? Don't blindly trust analyst ratings before looking at the fundamentals yourself!
The first step in determining whether a stock is overvalued is to check its price to book (P/B) ratio. This is perhaps the most basic measure of a company's valuation, which is its market value divided by its book value. Book value refers to the sum of all of the company's assets minus its liabilities -- you can also think of it as the company's equity value.
Traditionally, value investors would look for companies with a ratio of less than 1 (meaning that the market value was smaller than the company's book value), but such opportunities are very rare these days. So we tend to look for company's whose valuations are less than their sector and market average. The P/B ratio for Booz Allen Hamilton is 14.9, compared to its sector average of 3.19 and the S&P 500's average P/B of 4.74.
Modernly, the most common metric for valuing a company is its Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio. It's simply today's stock price of 139.92 divided by either its trailing or forward earnings, which for Booz Allen Hamilton are $6.35 and $6.99 respectively. Based on these values, the company's trailing P/E ratio is 22.0 and its forward P/E ratio is 20.0. By way of comparison, the average P/E ratio of the Consumer Discretionary sector is 22.6 and the average P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is 29.3.
Indebted or mismanaged companies can't sustain shareholder value for long, even if they have strong earnings. For this reason, considering Booz Allen Hamilton's ability to meet its debt obligations is also an important aspect of pinning down its valuation. By adding up its current assets, then subtracting its inventory and prepaid expenses, and then dividing the whole by its current liabilities, we obtain the company's Quick Ratio of 1.485. Since BAH's quick ratio is higher than 1, its total liquid assets are sufficient to meets its current liabilities.
One last metric to check out is Booz Allen Hamilton's free cash flow of $192.14 Million. This represents the total sum of all the company's inflows and outflows of capital, including the costs of servicing its debt. It's the final bottom line of the company, which it can use to re-invest or to pay its investors a dividend. With such healthy cash flows, investors can expect Booz Allen Hamilton to keep paying its 1.3% dividend.
Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton appear to be overvalued at today's prices — despite the positive outlook from analysts. But sometimes stocks with inflated valuations turn out to be strong performances for years, and even decades, such as Amazon. So be sure to do your own due diligence if you are interested in taking a long position in BAH.
