Chapter 5 of 12 · 15 min
Reading a stock like a pro
Price, market cap, P/E, EPS, dividend yield — the numbers that matter.
Open any stock page and you're hit with a wall of numbers. Good news: only a handful matter for a long-term investor, and each one answers a simple human question.
"How big is this company?" — Market cap
Market capitalisation = share price × total number of shares. If a company has 100 crore shares priced at ₹500, its market cap is ₹50,000 crore. This — not the share price — is the company's size. A ₹3,000 stock is not "expensive" and a ₹50 stock is not "cheap"; that's like judging a house by the price per brick.
"How much does it earn for me?" — EPS
Earnings Per Share = total annual profit ÷ number of shares. If the company earns ₹5,000 crore and has 100 crore shares, EPS is ₹50. As a part-owner, that ₹50 is the slice of profit working for each of your shares — whether it is paid out or reinvested.
"Am I overpaying?" — the P/E ratio
Price-to-Earnings = share price ÷ EPS. A ₹500 share earning ₹50 per share has a P/E of 10 — you are paying ₹10 for every ₹1 of yearly profit. A P/E of 60 means ₹60 for the same ₹1. High P/E isn't automatically bad (fast-growing companies command it), but it means the market has already priced in big expectations. Compare P/E within the same sector, and against the company's own history.
🎛 Try it: The P/E machine
You are paying ₹___ for every ₹1 of yearly profit. Feel how the dial moves.
P/E = price ÷ EPS
20.0×
Reasonable zone for a steady business
Always compare within the same sector and against the company's own history.
"Does it pay me cash?" — dividend yield
Dividend yield = yearly dividend per share ÷ share price. A ₹500 share paying ₹10 a year yields 2%. Mature companies (ITC-type FMCG, PSUs) often yield 2–4%; fast growers may pay nothing and reinvest instead. Neither is wrong — they are different deals.
☪️ Dividends and purification
Even a compliant company may earn a sliver of its income from interest (e.g. on bank deposits it holds). That sliver's share of your dividend should be given away to charity — this is purification. Gennoor Invest shows each stock's purification percentage and the calculator does the arithmetic for you. It is typically 1–4% of the dividend, not of your whole investment.
"Is it drowning in loans?" — debt-to-equity
Debt-to-equity compares borrowed money to owners' money. A company with ₹1 of debt for every ₹1 of equity (D/E = 1) is far riskier than one nearly debt-free (D/E = 0.1). Debt magnifies both growth and collapse — and for the halal investor, heavy interest-bearing debt is itself a screening failure (Chapter 10).
The 52-week high/low and other noise
Stock pages also show day ranges, 52-week highs and lows, volumes, beta… Useful to traders; mostly noise for you. A stock near its 52-week low is not automatically a bargain, and one at its high is not automatically overpriced. The business behind the ticker is what you are buying.
🛠 Build the skill — 20 minutes
- Pick two compliant companies from the same sector on the Gennoor Invest screener (e.g. two IT companies).
- Find for each: market cap, P/E, EPS, dividend yield (any finance site shows these).
- Write one sentence: "X is bigger / more expensive per rupee of profit / pays more cash than Y."
- Congratulations — that sentence is genuine stock analysis.
📌 Remember
- Market cap is the size; share price alone tells you nothing.
- EPS is your profit slice; P/E is what you pay for it; yield is the cash you receive.
- Compare ratios within a sector, never across unrelated industries.
- Purification: a small slice of dividends from even compliant stocks goes to charity.
✅ Check yourself
5 quick questions — answer honestly, learn instantly.
USE CASE1. Company A: ₹2,000/share, P/E 12. Company B: ₹150/share, P/E 70. Same sector. The "more expensive" stock is…
2. A company earns ₹4,000 crore on 200 crore shares. Its EPS is…
3. A stock is 45% below its 52-week high. This alone tells you…
USE CASE4. Dividend yield of 9% on a struggling company most likely signals…
5. For the halal investor, a company's heavy interest-bearing debt is…