Good financial information site

[Guppies]

Hi all. I'm trying to find a site that has a good wealth of stock information dating back a long ways (preferably to the beginning of the NYSE). For example, something I'd like to be able to do would be to do a search of all stocks that ever reached a P/E ratio of greater than 100 and then be able to view a chart of their stock price for the entire time they had this ratio. Are their any websites that exist that have databases/search options that are extensive enough to accomplish things like this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Chrisman886]

Stockcharts.com goes back to 1990, tradestation goes back 90 years but the scanning is cumbersome. You could probably write a scan in both.

Just my opinion, but P/E isn't as important as forward P/E because stock prices are not reflective of current performance but future expectations. But, IMHO, neither are very important at all. Theoretically, if institutions see a possible discrepancy in valuation they will have already capitalized on it before you can realize it existed.

[Guppies]

Thanks for the reply, I have a few questions about what you've said, I'm brand new to the stock market and investing in general so please bear with me.

First of all I'm a bit confused about what forward P/E means. From the context of your usage it seems like it means a stocks expected P/E ratio in the future, is that right?

While we're on the subject I was wondering if anyone could explain the concept of the P/E ratio. I was recently reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and in it he makes mention to "multipliers". It seems to me that a multiplier is the P/E ratio itself. So if a company had an earnings of $5 per share and a multiplier of 10 than the stock would sell for 50 points per share (and thus have a P/E of 10). Can someone please explain what the P/E ratio (or multiplier) is based on? Thanks in advance.

[pig4bill]

[ QUOTE ]
While we're on the subject I was wondering if anyone could explain the concept of the P/E ratio. I was recently reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and in it he makes mention to "multipliers". It seems to me that a multiplier is the P/E ratio itself. So if a company had an earnings of $5 per share and a multiplier of 10 than the stock would sell for 50 points per share (and thus have a P/E of 10). Can someone please explain what the P/E ratio (or multiplier) is based on? Thanks in advance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm, you just said it.

[Guppies]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I mean what factors go into determining what multiplier a stock sells at?

[pig4bill]

Whatever somebody wants to pay for it.

[Guppies]

Which is usually based on...?

[60Vauban]

supply and demand