account question need 2 feed back for Kim woods

A. I decided to test the performance of Monsanto Co against some of its close competitors in the agricultural chemical industry. A Company's Price - Earnings Ratio (P/E) is the price an investor is paying for one dollar of a company's earnings. Calculating the P/E ratio can help an investor determine whether the value of a stock is bloated due to popularity or if the stock is undervalued and a solid investment. Personally, I would prefer to invest in stocks that are undervalued, rather than those with high values based on investor speculation. To determine whether a stock is a good value, it is a good idea to compare the P/E of like companies within the same industry. If the P/E for company "A" is $5.00 per share but the P/E for  "B" is only $1.00, it would be wise to invest in company "A" because it provides a much greater return on investment.  The figure below shows P/E ratios of four similar companies:

	MON	BASFY	DOW	BAYRY
Price Per Share	125.25	117.14	51.23	141.25
Earnings Per Share	5.04	7.18	3.98	5.69
Price-Earnings	24.85	16.31	12.87	24.82

Judging these companies based strictly on P/E, it looks like Dow Chemical Co. is the best value out of the four, followed by BASFY and then Monsanto.  

B. The companies I picked for comparison was Exxon, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP.  Prior to this class I never understood and I am very much a beginner on how price earnings, earning per shares and price per share all worked together to show us how a company is doing financially.  I would read the paper and look for certain companies and looks at stock prices but, never understanding what the codes meant.  As an investor you need to know what the P/E is (to include the others) for the particular company you are interested in but, it is also helps in comparing similar companies.  This helps in deciding if a company is undervalued or over valued in comparison to the others.       

Compared three Oil and Gas companies:

Exxon (XOM)                         Chevron (CVX)          Royal Dutch Shell (ADR)      BP plc (BP)

P/E 13.87                                P/E 12.68                    P/E 20.06                                P/E 16.09

EPS 7.39                                 EPS 10.27                   EPS 4.04                                 EPS 3.22

Price per Share 102.57           PPS 130.25                 PPS 81.10                               PPS 51.80

Price-Earnings Ratio Called P/E for short, this ratio reflects investors' assessments of those future earnings. You determine the share price of the company's stock and divide it by EPS to obtain the P/E ratio.  If, for example, a company closed trading at $46.51 a share and EPS for the past 12 months averaged $4.90, then the P/E ratio would be 9.49. Investors would pay $9.49 for every generated dollar of annual earnings.  EPS

The portion of a company's profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock. Earnings per share serves as an indicator of a company's profitability. Calculated as: = net income - Dividends on preferred stock / Average Outstanding Shares

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0910/6-basic-financial-ratios-and-what-they-tell-you.aspx

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABP&ei=6zG_U8imFdHrrAH8iYCgDQ