The following was done a while ago. Why I have not followed it in last two years, and missed this great agri boom? Because I followed all the hypes: Home Inns, Heelys and Crocs 🙁
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Dec. 14, 2005
Dear Mr. John,
Both Monsanto and Sygentia are leaders in the agriculture business. Their financial fundamentals are solid. Both are profitable and have an R&D expense of about 10% of their annual sales. Since we are long term investors, we will look at the following ratios for year 2004 at first.
PE ratio: Monsanto’s 36.4 is significantly higher than Sygentia’s 6.3, which means the investors are more optimistic about Monsanto’s earning growth. We need to examine the expected growth is organic or will be materialize.