Because AXCI is not earning its cost of equity, as shown in Example 5-1, the company’s
share price should fall.
In Chapter 2, we explained that for a no-growth company, as here,
the earnings yield (E/P) is an estimate of the expected rate of return.
Therefore, when price reaches the point at which E/P equals the required rate of return on equity, an investment in the stock is expected to just cover the stock’s required rate of return.
With EPS of ¤0.91, the earnings yield is exactly 12 percent (AXCI’s cost of equity) when share price is ¤7.58333.
At a share price of ¤7.58333, the total market value of AXCI equity is ¤758,333.
At this level, the equity charge is ¤91,000 (¤758,333 × 12%) and residual income is zero. When a company has negative residual income, we expect shares to sell at a discount to book value.
In this example, AXCI’s price-to-book ratio (P/B) would be 0.7583. Conversely, if we changed
the data in Example 5-1 so that AXCI earned positive residual income, we would conclude
that its shares would sell at a premium to book value.
In summary, we expect higher residual income to be associated with higher market prices (and higher P/Bs), all else equal.