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Costain Group (LSE:COST) Graham Number : £1.05 (As of Dec. 2023)


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What is Costain Group Graham Number?

Graham Number is a figure that measures a stock's fundamental value by taking into account the company's earnings per share and book value per share. The Graham number is the upper bound of the price range that a defensive investor should pay for the stock. According to the theory, any stock price below the Graham number is considered undervalued, and thus worth investing in.

As of today (2024-06-11), the stock price of Costain Group is £0.834. Costain Group's graham number for the quarter that ended in Dec. 2023 was £1.05. Therefore, Costain Group's Price to Graham Number ratio for today is 0.79.

The historical rank and industry rank for Costain Group's Graham Number or its related term are showing as below:

LSE:COST' s Price-to-Graham-Number Range Over the Past 10 Years
Min: 0.35   Med: 1.01   Max: 2.36
Current: 0.79

During the past 13 years, the highest Price to Graham Number ratio of Costain Group was 2.36. The lowest was 0.35. And the median was 1.01.

LSE:COST's Price-to-Graham-Number is ranked better than
61.7% of 1141 companies
in the Construction industry
Industry Median: 1 vs LSE:COST: 0.79

Graham Number is a combination of asset valuation and earnings power valuation. It is a very conservative way of valuing a stock.


Costain Group Graham Number Historical Data

The historical data trend for Costain Group's Graham Number can be seen below:

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

* Premium members only.

Costain Group Graham Number Chart

Costain Group Annual Data
Trend Dec14 Dec15 Dec16 Dec17 Dec18 Dec19 Dec20 Dec21 Dec22 Dec23
Graham Number
Get a 7-Day Free Trial Premium Member Only Premium Member Only 1.57 - 1.07 1.13 1.05

Costain Group Semi-Annual Data
Jun14 Dec14 Jun15 Dec15 Jun16 Dec16 Jun17 Dec17 Jun18 Dec18 Jun19 Dec19 Jun20 Dec20 Jun21 Dec21 Jun22 Dec22 Jun23 Dec23
Graham Number Get a 7-Day Free Trial Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only - - 1.11 1.03 1.05

Competitive Comparison of Costain Group's Graham Number

For the Engineering & Construction subindustry, Costain Group's Price-to-Graham-Number, along with its competitors' market caps and Price-to-Graham-Number data, can be viewed below:

* Competitive companies are chosen from companies within the same industry, with headquarter located in same country, with closest market capitalization; x-axis shows the market cap, and y-axis shows the term value; the bigger the dot, the larger the market cap. Note that "N/A" values will not show up in the chart.


Costain Group's Price-to-Graham-Number Distribution in the Construction Industry

For the Construction industry and Industrials sector, Costain Group's Price-to-Graham-Number distribution charts can be found below:

* The bar in red indicates where Costain Group's Price-to-Graham-Number falls into.



Costain Group Graham Number Calculation

Graham Number is a concept based on Ben Graham's conservative valuation of companies.

Costain Group's Graham Number for the fiscal year that ended in Dec. 2023 is calculated as

Graham Number
=sqrt of (22.5* Tangible Book per Share *EPS without NRI)
=sqrt of (22.5*0.628*0.078)
=1.05

Costain Group's Graham Number for the quarter that ended in Dec. 2023 is calculated as

Graham Number
=sqrt of (22.5*Tangible Book per Share*EPS without NRI (TTM))
=sqrt of (22.5*0.628*0.078)
=1.05

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.


Costain Group  (LSE:COST) Graham Number Explanation

Ben Graham actually did not publish a formula like this. But he wrote in The Intelligent Investor (1948 version) regarding to the criteria for purchases:

Current price should not be more than 15 times average earnings of the past three years.

Current price should not be more than 1.5 times the book value last reported. However, a multiplier of earnings below 15 could justify a correspondingly higher multiplier of assets. As a rule of thumb we suggest that the product of the multiplier times the ratio of price to book value should not exceed 22.5. (This figure corresponds to 15 times earnings and 1.5 times book value. It would admit an issue selling at only 9 times earnings and 2.5 times asset value, etc.)

Unlike valuation methods such as DCF or Discounted Earnings, the Graham number does not take growth into the valuation. Unlike the valuation methods based on book value alone, it takes into account the earnings power. Therefore, the Graham Number is a combination of asset valuation and earnings power valuation.

In general, the Graham number is a very conservative way of valuing a stock. It cannot be applied to companies with negative book values.

Costain Group's Price to Graham number Ratio for today is calculated as

Price to Graham number=Share Price (Today)/Graham number (Q: Dec. 2023 )
=0.834/1.05
=0.79

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.


Be Aware

Please keep these in mind:

1. Graham Number does not take growth into account. Therefore it underestimates the values of the companies that have good earnings growth. We feel that if the earnings per share grows more than 10% a year, Graham Number underestimates the value.
2. Graham Number punishes the companies that have temporarily low earnings. Therefore, an average of earnings makes more sense in the calculation of Graham Number.
3. Graham Numbers underestimates companies that are light with book.


Costain Group Graham Number Related Terms

Thank you for viewing the detailed overview of Costain Group's Graham Number provided by GuruFocus.com. Please click on the following links to see related term pages.


Costain Group (LSE:COST) Business Description

Traded in Other Exchanges
Address
Costain House, Vanwall Business Park, Maidenhead, Berkshire, GBR, SL6 4UB
Costain Group PLC offers solutions and services. It provides engineering and technology solutions and advisory and development, design, management, project delivery, technology integration and asset optimization and support services to highways, nuclear, oil and gas, power, water sectors, rail. The company has two segments Transportation and Natural resources. Transportation segment covers highways, rail and nuclear markets and Natural resources segment comprises of water, power and oil and gas markets.