looking into the current session ihs markit inc nyseinfo is trading at 11974 after a 167 drop over the past month the stock decreased by 919 but over the past year it actually went up by 3357 with questionable shortterm performance like this and great longterm performance longterm shareholders might want to start looking into the companys pricetoearnings ratio assuming that all other factors are held constant this could present itself as an opportunity for shareholders trying to capitalize on the higher share price the stock is currently below from its 52 week high by 1184 the pe ratio measures the current share price to the companys earnings per share it is used by longterm investors to analyze the companys current performance against its past earnings historical data and aggregate market data for the industry or the indices such as sp 500 a higher pe indicates that investors expect the company to perform better in the future and the stock is probably overvalued but not necessarily it also shows that investors are willing to pay a higher share price currently because they expect the company to perform better in the upcoming quarters this leads investors to also remain optimistic about rising dividends in the future depending on the particular phase of a business cycle some industries will perform better than others compared to the aggregate pe ratio of 6903 in the professional services industry ihs markit inc has a higher pe ratio of 7856 shareholders might be inclined to think that ihs markit inc might perform better than its industry group its also possible that the stock is overvalued price to earnings ratio is not always a great indicator of the companys performance depending on the earnings makeup of a company investors can become unable to attain key insights from trailing earnings