Analyze the Close Price-Earnings Ratio with hf_close_price_earnings_ratio

The hf_close_price_earnings_ratio function in MarketXLS helps you fetch a company's close price-earnings ratio for a selected symbol, year, and quarter–or over a trailing 12-month (TTM) period. This ratio provides valuable insights for investors, enabling a quick comparison of a company’s market price to its earnings power. By automating the fundamental data lookup directly in Excel, you save time and maintain crucial context for your trading and investment decisions.

Why Use This Function?

• Quickly assess a stock’s relative valuation based on its share price and earnings.
• Compare PE ratios across multiple securities to identify potentially undervalued or overvalued stocks.
• Access real-time fundamentals and historical data right within your Excel workflow.
• Streamline your analysis of annual, quarterly, or trailing 12-month results—no manual data lookups needed.
• Combine with other MarketXLS functions to build broader valuation models or watchlists.

How to Use in Excel

Use the following syntax directly in an Excel cell:

=hf_close_price_earnings_ratio(Symbol, Year, Quarter, [TTM])

• Symbol: The ticker symbol or identifier of the company (e.g., "AAPL" for Apple Inc.)
• Year: The fiscal year you want to analyze (e.g., "2022")
• Quarter: The specific quarter (1, 2, 3, or 4) whose data you want. If Quarter is left blank or an empty string, the function internally defaults to "2".
• [TTM]: Optional. If "TTM" (without quotes) is specified, the function retrieves the trailing 12-month data (where available); otherwise, it fetches data for the quarter specified.

In practice:

1. Type "=hf_close_price_earnings_ratio(AAPL,2021,4)" to get Apple’s close price-earnings ratio for the fourth quarter of 2021.
2. Type "=hf_close_price_earnings_ratio(AAPL,2021,,TTM)" to get a trailing 12-month (TTM) figure for 2021 if available.

Parameters Explained

Example Usage

Basic Examples

1. Retrieve PE Ratio for a Specific Quarter
   • Formula: =hf_close_price_earnings_ratio("AAPL","2022",1)
   • Description: Returns Apple’s close price-earnings ratio for Q1 of 2022.

2. Retrieve PE Ratio for the Full Year (Default Quarter Handling)
   • Formula: =hf_close_price_earnings_ratio("MSFT","2021","")
   • Description: If Quarter is blank, the function treats Quarter as "2" by default, so this looks up Q2 2021 data for Microsoft’s close PE ratio.

3. Retrieve Trailing 12 Months PE Ratio
   • Formula: =hf_close_price_earnings_ratio("IBM","2022",4,"TTM")
   • Description: Fetches IBM’s trailing 12-month close price-earnings ratio near Q4 2022.

Advanced Scenarios

• Evaluating Multiple Quarters Side by Side
Imagine you want to compare Apple’s Q1 2021 vs Q1 2022:
• Cell A1: =hf_close_price_earnings_ratio("AAPL","2021",1)
• Cell B1: =hf_close_price_earnings_ratio("AAPL","2022",1)
This setup allows you to see how Apple’s close PE ratio changed from one Q1 to the next.

• Tracking Seasonal Trends
If you suspect a stock’s PE ratio is influenced by seasonal earnings (e.g., a retailer around holiday seasons), you can create a quarterly table for the last two years by incrementing the Quarter parameter (1 through 4) and specifying multiple rows of formulas.

• Pairing with Other Excel Functions
Combine hf_close_price_earnings_ratio with other MarketXLS or standard Excel functions (like AVERAGE or COUNTIF) to get average PE ratios over several quarters, or quickly detect which symbols maintain the lowest or highest PE ratio.

Common Questions and Troubleshooting

• "I get an 'NA' result—what did I do wrong?"
  • Verify the Symbol is correct. An invalid ticker will return "NA".
  • Check the Year and Quarter; there may be no data for that time frame.
  • Ensure your MarketXLS subscription supports fundamental data.

• "Why do I receive 'NA' when I set TTM?"
  • TTM data may be unavailable for certain symbols or time periods.
  • Double-check that TTM is spelled exactly as "TTM".

• "My Quarter field is empty, but I still get a result—what does it mean?"
  • The function defaults Quarter to "2" internally if left blank, so you’re effectively seeing Q2 data.

• "How do I view data for the next quarter if the data isn't out yet?"
  • You can only retrieve data that exists. For future or recently ended quarters with no official data, the function will return "NA".

By leveraging hf_close_price_earnings_ratio, you can seamlessly evaluate and monitor the PE ratio across different fiscal periods, comparing stocks side by side or tracking corporate performance over time—all from the convenience of Excel with MarketXLS.