We are pleased to announce we have added distribution charts to our definition pages.
Background
Techopedia defines a histogram as a chart that graphs the “frequency of the occurrence of specific phenomena” arranged in consecutive and fixed intervals. Figure 1 shows a sample histogram illustrating the distribution of operating margins for companies trading on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
Figure 1
Each bar of Figure 1 reports the number of companies with an operating margin falling within a fixed range. For example, the second bar from the left indicates that two S&P 500 companies have an operating margin between -25% and -20%. Likewise, two S&P 500 companies have an operating margin between 65% and 70%. Table 1 summarizes these companies.
| Company name | Operating margin % | Operating margin % falls between |
| Hess Corp. (HES, Financial) | -21.75 | -25 and -20 |
| Autodesk Inc. (ADSK, Financial) | -20.18 | -25 and -20 |
| Visa Inc. (V, Financial) | 65.95 | 65 and 70 |
| CME Group Inc. (CME, Financial) | 66.62 | 65 and 70 |
Table 1
Feature description and usage
Figure 2 shows sample distribution charts for Apple Inc. (AAPL, Financial).
Figure 2
The chart on the left compares Apple’s price-earnings ratio to companies within the consumer electronics industry, while the chart on the right considers all technology companies. The red bars indicate the bin containing Apple’s price-earnings ratio: as illustrated in Figure 3, 110 consumer electronics companies have a price-earnings ratio between 15 and 16.88, including Apple.
Figure 3
GuruFocus recently launched detailed industry overview pages that describe the historical trend for various valuation and quality ratios, including the price-sales ratio and return on equity.
Although all GuruFocus users can view the industry overview pages, the historical key ratio charts for each sector and industry are restricted to Premium members. Each sector and industry page also contains a link to our All-in-one Screener, allowing users to view all companies within a specific sector or industry.
Disclosure: No positions.
