Danielson and Dowdell (2001) used a “return-stages model” to understand the future expectation
from a firm. They divided their sample into four groups on the basis of price-to-book (P/B) and P/E ratio:
growth firms, mature firms, turnaround firms and declining firms. These four groups as per them define
the future operating performance patterns that can allow a firm to earn a stock return equal to its required
return. In a way, they meant to say that P/E ratio is actually related to a firm’s future operating performance
and it is the operating performance that determines the stock return.