In celebration of March Madness, the Motley Fool is pitting 16 editor-selected companies in a fierce Stock Madness bracket. We will show you how the companies rank based on five key metrics, but your votes will determine the winner of each match-up.
This matchup is Apollo Group
|
Factor |
Apollo Group |
New York Times |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Cheapness |
15.5 |
81.0 |
|
|
Growth |
21.6% |
-45.1% |
|
|
Operations |
15.4% |
0.06% |
|
|
Balance Sheet |
.13 |
1.27 |
|
|
CAPS Rating |
|
|
Round 1: Cheapness
Advantage: Apollo Group. Cheapness is determined by P/E ratio. The lower the better. Be careful of earnings near zero that skew the ratio, one-time gains and losses, and pasts that aren’t indicative of futures (the more dynamic the industry, the more this is true).
Round 2: Growth
Advantage: Apollo Group. Growth here is the trailing 5-year EPS growth rate. This trailing earnings growth helps put notoriously-optimistic Wall Street projections in perspective.
Round 3: Operations
Advantage: Apollo Group. Net margin percentage shows how efficiently a company turns revenue into profit. The more similar the business models, the more relevant the comparison.
Round 4: Balance sheet
Advantage: Apollo Group. As with net margins, the debt to capital ratio is most relevant in comparing companies in similar industries. In this battle we give the nod to the lower-debt company, but attention should also be paid to the cost of debt, interest coverage ratios, and the stability of the business (the more stable a company’s operations, the more debt it can safely carry).
Round 5: CAPS rating
Advantage: Apollo Group. A company’s CAPS rating is our community’s opinion of the stock. You can get more information on your stocks -- and our community’s opinions of those stocks -- by clicking over to CAPS area.
Each of these five rankings need more context to determine how these companies stack up against each other and bracket competitors Comcast
