Update: dictionary.com says twice a year... it continues with the definition with every two years: Biennial. In Britain, it seems, it might mean both... but in the U.S. biannual means twice a year.
We're talking about the price-to-earnings, or P/E, ratio. The current 12-month forward P/E ratio is 16.8, FactSet's John Butters said on Friday. This P/E ratio is above the 5-year average (13.8) and the 10-year average (14.1).. But just because stocks are expensive relative to their long-term average is no guarantee that prices are doomed to fall immediately.
Definition of price/earnings ratio. A company's share price divided by the amount of profits it makes for each share in a 12-month period. PE ratios are normally calculated on the base of all the profit made in the period, whether or not the profit is paid out to shareholders in that period. [1]