Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Check your Info: Yahoo v. Google

I happened to run a Yahoo (YHOO) Finance screen, using their html screener, on the stocks with the lowest P/E ratio, and it showed Brasil Telecom S.A. (BTM), which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, as having a P/E of 0.01. I checked the key statistics for the stock on Yahoo, and it said the company had revenues per share of 30,408 and earnings per share of 1,968. Maybe it's because they show the number of shares outstanding as 182K or 182,000.

I then checked Google (GOOG) Finance, and for the same company they had a P/E of 13.23, earnings per share of 1.98, and number of shares outstanding of 182.42M or 182,000,000. This P/E is still favorable, but if a metric or statistic looks too good to be true, such as the one shown on Yahoo, check it out with another source.

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