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birb_cromble  10hr ago (text post)   152 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2026-08-22

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What do you think is an appropriate P/E for the following companies? I was looking at them this week and I was a little surprised at how things have crept upwards this year.

  • Costco (currently 46x)
  • Walmart (currently 37x)
  • Waste Management (currently 32x)
  • Sysco (currently 23x)
  • TSMC (currently 30x)
  • Airbus (currently 37x)
  • Coca cola (currently 27x)

The only answer I can give is that I don't really concern myself with P/E or whether it creeps up during the course of a bull market and due to money printing etc.

A lot of the best stocks throughout the history of the stock market started their explosive runs at "very high" P/E's and ended up much higher.

There's nowhere else for money to go but into stocks. Bond yields are still too low. Thus the climbing P/E ratio.

I used to only buy stocks with P/E of 10-20, preferably 10-15. That's completely impossible now.

I didn't even realize WM was publically traded. I presume they do far more than just bin pickup?

Also seems odd to me that TSMC is so low, relatively speaking. I'd have assumed them to be ahead of Walmart at the very least.

Also, competitor context would be interesting to see -- Boeing's vs Airbus, for instance.

But all this is why I fully admit I am not capable of playing the markets, and stick to my dumb index funds.

WM does more than just residential pickups, but it's all trash. I have some shares for years because they've historically been low volatility and offer a good dividend.

  • Costco (46x)
  • Walmart (37x)
  • Waste Management (32x)
  • Sysco (23x)
  • TSMC (30x)
  • Airbus (37x)
  • Coca cola (27x)

Would you mind elaborating on your rationale for any of these? I'm particularly interested in Costco.

On one hand, I get it. The hot dog is the only truly inflation-proof asset.

On the other hand, a multiple that high assumes some pretty massive future returns, and I don't see how Costco pulls that off without some bonkers expansion, and the last retail consumer staple company that tried that was Target, and the bet didn't pay off.

For liquid stocks it’s highly unlikely that, absent any non-public information, I, any other retail investor, most professional investors—or maybe even any professional investor—has/have a better idea of what an appropriate P/E ratio is for a given stock beyond the one observed at the time.

Is this a riff on "it's already priced in", then?

The market is an all powerful, all encompassing being that knows the very inner workings of your subconscious before you were even born.

Your very existence was priced in decades ago when the market was valuing Standard Oil's expected future earnings based on population growth that would lead to your birth, what age you would get a car, how many times you would drive your car every week, how many times you take the bus/train, etc.

Anything you can think of has already been priced in, even the things you aren't thinking of. You have no original thoughts. Your consciousness is just an illusion, a product of the omniscent market. Free will is a myth. The market sees all, knows all and will be there from the beginning of time until the end of the universe (the market has already priced in the heat death of the universe).

I think what they're saying is that whatever the market has them at is what the appropriate P/E is.

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