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Correlation Calculation

 

To calculate the relationship between each growth variable and the share price of the company we calculate the average sales growth, gross margin and EBITDA margin over the record of the company and measure the simple correlation coefficient between that growth variable and the relative investment performance of the stock with a two month lag. The lag insures that the information about the variable was available to the market when the shares were priced. For most stocks with high share price to growth correlation the relationship can been seen with a visual inspection of the relative investment return chart compared to the growth variable chart. In the case of Motorola, the relative share price has followed the direction of sales growth and margins closely.

That close relationship is indicated statistically by high correlation between the relative share price and sales growth, gross margins and operating margins.

A correlation calculation is very sensitive to distortions in the data record. That means that even though the correlation may be interesting we should not place too much trust in it. In general terms an improvement or deterioration in fundamentals should be taken seriously even for companies with low share price to growth variable correlation.

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