ROC For Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) Placed Under Scrutiny as it hits 0.091358

Taking a look into the returns for Scholastic Corporation (SCHL), we see the stock has a current MF Rank of 2514. Developed by hedge fund manager Joel Greenblatt, the intention of the formula is to spot high quality companies that are trading at an attractive price. The formula uses ROIC and earnings yield ratios to find quality, undervalued stocks. In general, companies with the lowest combined rank may be the higher quality picks.

Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) has a current ERP5 Rank of 2021. The ERP5 Rank may assist investors with spotting companies that are undervalued. This ranking uses four ratios. These ratios are Earnings Yield, ROIC, Price to Book, and 5 year average ROIC. When looking at the ERP5 ranking, it is generally considered the lower the value, the better.

There are various factors to examine when looking at what spurs growth in the stock market. Many investors will monitor macro-economic factors that influence the price of shares. Some of these factors include the overall condition of the economy and market sentiment. Following the macro factors, investors may employ a top down approach when viewing the equity markets. This may include starting with a sector poised for growth and filtering down to specific stock that meet the investor’s criteria. Another way to approach the stock market is to view the micro-economic factors that influence stocks. This may include studying company profits, news, and the competence of overall management. Investors will often try to piece together all the different information available in order to select stocks that will have a positive impact on the long-term strength of the portfolio.

Value Composite Three (VC3) is another adaptation of O’Shaughnessy’s value composite but here he combines the factors used in VC1 with buyback yield. This factor is interesting for investors who’re looking for stocks with the best value characteristics, but are indifferent to whether these companies pay a dividend.

VC3 is the combination of the following factors:

Price-to-Book
Price-to-Earnings
Price-to-Sales
EBITDA/EV
Price-to-Cash flow
Buyback Yield

As with the VC1 and VC2, companies are put into groups from 1 to 100 for each ratio and the individual scores are summed up. This total score is then put into groups again from 1 to 100. 1 is cheap, 100 is expensive. Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) has a VC3 of 18.

The scorecard also displays variants of the VC3 where the score is calculated for the selected company compared to peer companies in the same industry, industry group or sector.

Watching some historical volatility numbers on shares of Scholastic Corporation (SCHL), we can see that the 12 month volatility is presently 32.3468. The 6 month volatility is 29.8282, and the 3 month is spotted at 31.1816. Following volatility data can help measure how much the stock price has fluctuated over the specified time period. Although past volatility action may help project future stock volatility, it may also be vastly different when taking into account other factors that may be driving price action during the measured time period.

NCAV-to-Market

Benjamin Graham, professor and founder of value investing principles, was one of the first to consistently screen the market looking for bargain companies based on value factors. He didn’t have databases such as ValueSignals at his disposal, but used people like his apprentice Warren Buffet to fill out stock sheets with the most important data.

Graham was always on the watch for firms that were so discounted, that if the company went into liquidation, the proceeds of the assets would still return a profit.

The ratio he used to identify these companies was Net Current Asset Value or NCAV. This ratio is much more stringent compared to book value (total assets – total liabilities) and is calculated as follows:

NCAV = Current Assets – Total Liabilities
Current Assets = Cash & ST Investments + Inventories + Accounts Receivable
Graham was only happy if he could buy the company at 2/3 of the NCAV. That’s the sort of margin of safety he was looking for.

This strategy was very successful during the years after Graham published it in his book ‘Security analysis’ in 1934 and also in more recent studies it has proven to provide superior results. A study done by the State University of New York to prove the effectiveness of this strategy showed that from the period of 1970 to 1983 an investor could have earned an average return of 29.4%, by purchasing stocks that fulfilled Graham’s requirement and holding them for one year. Nowadays it’s very difficult to find companies that meet Graham’s criteria.

We calculate NCAV to Market as follows:

NCAV-to-Market Ratio = NCAV divided by Market Cap

Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) has an NCAV to Market value of 0.211354.

Price to Sales

In the original edition of ‘What works on Wall Street’, O’Shaughnessy wrote that the single-best value factor was a company’s price-to-sales ratio (P/S). In his latest edition the P/S continues to perform well, but it was unseated by the value composites and EBITDA/EV due to 2 reasons: (1) A broader scope of analysis by using deciles and (2) two very bad years for P/S, e.g. 2007 and 2008.

A stock’s P/S is similar to its P/E ratio, but it measures the price of the company against its annual sales instead of earnings.

It’s calculated as follows:

Price-to-Sales Ratio = Market Cap/Net Sales or Revenues

Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) has a price to sales ratio of 0.893989.

Price to Earnings

This is undoubtedly the most popular value factor and for many investors the one true faith. It compares the price you pay per share compared to the earnings during the last 12 months. It’s calculated as follows:

Price-to-Earnings Ratio = Share Price/Diluted EPS excluding extra items

The P/E ratio for Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) is -565.398575.

Gross Profitability

Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) has Gross Profitability of 0.475574

Robert Novy-Marx, a professor at the university of Rochester, discovered that gross profitability – a quality factor – has as much power predicting stock returns as traditional value metrics. He found that while other quality measures had some predictive power, especially on small caps and in conjunction with value measures, gross profitability generates significant excess returns as a stand alone strategy, especially on large cap stocks.

Gross Profitability is calculated as follows:

Gross Profitability = (Net Sales or Revenues−Cost of Goods Sold)/Total Assets

Novy-Marx’s key insight was that you don’t need to go further down the income statement as these numbers may get manipulated with accounting tricks. To identify really profitable firms, one should look at the top line, not the bottom line.

In one of his papers, Novy-Marx compares gross profitability to the other most famous strategies such as Greenblatt magic formula, Piortoski F-Score, etc.

Stock analysis typically falls under the two main categories of fundamental and technical. Fundamental analysis involves diving into company financials. Fundamental analysts study how the company is performing in order to determine whether or not the stock is ready to run. With this type of analysis, investors will be looking at balance sheet strength and gauging how much money the company is giving back to shareholders. After crunching all the numbers, investors can use the information to calculate ratios to help determine if the company is properly valued and worth adding to the portfolio. Technical analysis relies on charting historical stock prices in order to define trends and patterns. The buying and selling of stocks using only technical analysis typically removes any concern for how the company is fairing or even what it actually does. Some indicators that technical analysts use can be super simple and others can be highly complex. Many investors will attempt to study both technicals and fundamentals with the goal of gaining greater knowledge of where the stock has been, and where it might be going.