Question: A price-earnings ratio or P/E ratio is calculated as a firm's share price compared to the income or profit earned by the firm per share. Generally, a high P/E ratio suggests that investors are expecting higher earnings growth in the future compared to companies with a lower P/E ratio. The accompanying table shows a portion of 26 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average and their P/E ratios as of July 23, 2010 (at the time data were retrieved, data on four firms were not available). The complete data, labeled PE Ratio are available on the text website.
a. Calculate and interpret the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles.
b. Construct a box plot. Are there any outliers? Is the distribution symmetric? If not, comment on its skewness.