Real Estate Innovation

The 5 Keys To Stocks Trading Success: Profit Margins

The fifth and final part of this series deals with the profit margin, which is traditionally an undervalued concept in finance today. Profit margin is something that many shareholders are concerned about when going through the books of their company and they always urge directors to improve profit margins. But why do they do this?

Before answering this question, I will outline what a profit margin actually means just in case some people are not aware of the concept. Profit margins are obtained by dividing net income by net sales. This essentially shows what percentage of net sales becomes net income after taking into account expenses (including tax).

Therefore, a high profit margin means that the company is controlling its costs very well, which is what investors all look for. On the other hand, a low profit margin indicates a low margin of safety meaning that a decline in sales could quickly erase profits and result in a net loss.

Now, that all may seem pretty simple to understand, which is true. It’s not difficult to see how profit margins can be useful in determining which companies to invest in. However, Warren Buffett uses profit margins in a different way to the typical investor and this is why his fortunes have not been necessarily typical.

Historical profit margins are the key behind the success Buffett has enjoyed. This basically means that you have to analyse the evolution of profit margins of a company to give you a good idea of the state of the company. During this analysis, 3 types of patterns can be observed and it’s important to understand the meaning of each one.

A typical pattern observed is a stable profit margin over the time period chosen for the analysis. This can be both good and bad news for the investor. It is positive news for the investor if this is high because it means that any increases in expenses during that time have been absorbed and controlled well. It is negative news for the investor if this is low because it implies that the company has not been able to keep expenses under control over that period of time.

Another common pattern is that of an increasing profit margin over the time period chosen. This is obviously good news for any investor, but before making any decision to invest, it may be wise to go through other parts of the Buffett methodology explained in the 4 previous articles of this series.

A final common pattern is that of a decreasing profit margin over the time period chosen. This is evidently bad news for any investor and it is highly recommended that investors stay away from companies which have this characteristic. Nevertheless, it would be premature to say that such a company is not worth investing in without looking at other parts of the Buffett methodology.

All in all, Buffett’s methodology involves 5 components explained in this article and my 4 previous articles. The fact that the richest man in the world used this to achieve such success means that it must be learned and understood by all investors throughout the world. Nevertheless, this is not the only strategy to use. There are so many others with varying levels of success. Keep an eye out for future articles regarding new and important strategies any investor can use to become rich and successful.