Sixth World's Roundtable--fundies

As promised, a quick take on the fundamentals of TM and A.
Again, also weighing in are Kaushik Gala, Ron Sen ,Levi Bauer and of course, Thomas Ott at Sixth World.
Somebody (Peter Lynch, maybe?) says that there are no extra points given for "degree of difficulty" in analyzing stocks--the complicated stories don't necessarily make you any more money than the simple ones. Somebody else (John Train, I believe, but I can't swear to it) once said that the auto industry was one of the great capital destroyers of modern industry--GM and F, over the past half-century, actually have had to consume capital in the form of constantly issuing new stock in order to stay alive. With that background in mind, let's look at some simple metrics on TM.
Price to sales is 0.74, which in the abstract sounds cheap, but it compares to 0.14 for F, 0.11 for GM, 0.6 for HMC, and 0.53 for the industry as a whole. Similarly, TM's PE is 11, compared to 7 for F, 5 for GM, and 10 for HMC, 15 for the industry as a whole. No screaming value here. Is Toyota a great company? No doubt--my wife drives a Sienna, and it has more room inside than my Ford Expedition, which is a larger, more expensive, and less fuel efficient vehicle. No one could argue that Toyota's products aren't among the best. But the way to make money on the stock of a great company is to buy it at a good price, and my brief take on it is that it's not cheap here.

As for Agilent, same sort of thing. Its PE is 33, compared to 24 for IBM and 23 for the industry as a whole. PS is 1.58, with IBM at 1.63 and the industry at 1.22. PEG, or price to earnings to growth (I know, some people swear by this metric and some people swear at it) is 1.62 for A, 1.66 for IBM and 1.3 for the industry. Again no screaming value here.

In summary, I don't see any great value here based on the fundies. Maybe Kaushik, Ron ,Levi or Tom will be able to demonstrate some value, and I bow to their wisdom. But for old Jaloti, I'd stick to trading the technicals on both of these, buying a breakout of the trading range and/or selling a breakdown.