The PE ratio measures the
reported earnings of a company to its current stock price. While earnings are
easy to manipulate on the balance sheet, this ratio gives you a sense of what
buyers are willing to pay for the stock—what they believe it will do in
the future.
Comparing a stock's PE to the average PE of companies in its industry gives
you a sense of market sentiment about the stock and how well it fares
financially. It's not the only number, nor the most important, but comparing
similar companies is valuable. A ratio far above or below that of its peers is
significant.
Industries are more specific than sectors, so companies within most
industries are more similar than are companies within an industry. Be aware
that the size and customers of companies are important to their prospects.
The PE ratio measures the
reported earnings of a company to its current stock price. While earnings are
easy to manipulate on the balance sheet, this ratio gives you a sense of what
buyers are willing to pay for the stock—what they believe it will do in
the future.
Comparing a stock's PE to the average PE of companies in its sector gives
you a sense of market sentiment about the stock and how well it fares
financially. It's not the only number, nor the most important, but comparing
similar companies is valuable. A ratio far above or below that of its peers is
significant.
Be aware that sectors are very broad, with many types of companies in the
same sector.
The cash yield of a stock is
the ratio of free cash per share—real dollars available after bringing in
revenue and paying bills—to the current price of the stock. It's similar
to the PE ratio, but it's less prone to manipulation through accounting
practices.
In general, the less you have to pay to make more money, the better.
The free cash flow
jitter of a stock measures how much the company's free cash flow varies
from its historical trend, on average. While it's always nice to make more
money than you expected, a company with predictable free cash flow is stable
and good. A company with wild swings in its free cash flow warrants further
research.
Open-market buys and sells reported by Carrols Restaurant Group's
officers, directors, and 10% owners on SEC Form 4. Routine transactions
(tax withholding, option exercises, and stock grants) are excluded --
these are discretionary trades only.
Date
Insider
Type
Shares
Price
2020-03-11T00:00:00
HARRIS DAVID
Buy
40,000
$2.27
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Accordino Daniel T (CEO and President)
Buy
50,000
$4.20
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Sloane Alexander R
Buy
8,294
$3.97
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Sloane Alexander R
Buy
400
$3.97
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Sloane Alexander R
Buy
5,296
$4.01
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Sloane Alexander R
Buy
11,326
$4.06
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Hull Anthony E (VP, CFO, Treasurer)
Buy
2,500
$4.23
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Perelman Matthew Terker
Buy
25,000
$3.93
2020-02-28T00:00:00
Hartmann Markus (VP, GC, Secretary)
Buy
2,500
$3.84
This stock has short interest! This means that people have shorted it.
Why does that matter? They've made a bet that price will decrease from where
they bought it. Maybe there are financial problems, or maybe there's a value
play.
As of the latest analysis, there are 485,529 shares shorted. With 33,944,131 shares available for purchase and an average trading
volume over the past 10 trading days of 125,180, it would take at least 3.879 days for all of the short holders to cover their
shorts.
Based on our analysis, we believe that you should not buy Carrols Restaurant Group
right now. It might be a good stock to own—we just can't prove
it with value analysis right now. Proceed with caution.
Does Carrols Restaurant Group have a coherent story? Does it have a plan to
continue to make money? Is it worth your time? Only you can decide where to go
from here. Our investment guide helps you ask the
right questions, including how to buy stocks.
Use these research links for more information.
Worked example: TAST
This example shows how we apply the Trendshare checklist to TAST: earnings power, cash generation, valuation, and margin of safety.
We check: business quality, free cash flow, P/E, and margin of safety.
Step 1 — Snapshot
Price: 1.45
Market cap: $74M
EPS: -0.581
Step 2 — Valuation checks
P/E: 40.14
FCF yield: 143.9%
Date checked: Jul 27, 2026
Step 3 — Margin of safety
Compare price to fair value and safety price.
Look for durable cash generation and reasonable leverage.