Tronox trades for less than book value, and at a 45% discount to its five-year average price-to-book value ratio.

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Its price-sales ratio is 27% below its 3.5 average since 2008, and the discount to its five-year average price-to-book value ratio is 31%.

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Beaten up Hovnanian Enterprises, for example, carries a price-to-book value ratio of 0.9, cheap relative to an average multiple since 1988 of 1.1.

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Mr Osborne will also say the sale's valuation of Northern Rock's "price-to-book value ratio" - that is, its assets minus its liabilities - is higher than peers Barclays, Lloyds TSB or the Royal Bank of Scotland.

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It trades for 3.9 times sales, but its price-to-book-value ratio is just 1.2.

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On the other hand, the price-to-book ratio is a useful measure of value, and most researchers agree that this ratio is strongly correlated with stock price performance.

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Then there is the price-to-book ratio, which measures a company's stockmarket value against the book value of its assets.

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In the ratio of price-to-book value China is, at 4.6, the second priciest, behind another country with a superheated economy: India, which trades at 4.9 times book.

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For example, Fidelity national trades for 0.72 times sales, 1.85 times book value and at a price-to-earnings growth ratio of 0.91.

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Even so, it trades at 10% below book value and has a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 10, which is a big discount to the industry average of 16.

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