CATO Historical PE Ratio Notes

— The Cato Corporation (ticker symbol: CATO) is a specialty retailer of women’s fashion and accessories, operating stores primarily under the Cato, Versona, and It's Fashion brands across the southeastern & midwestern United States. The company specializes in offering affordable, trend-driven apparel & accessories targeted mostly to value-conscious women. When analyzing historical P/E ratios for CATO, it’s key to consider how the company’s business model is closely tied to broader economic and retail sector trends, such as consumer spending habits, competition from e-commerce, and inventory management. Periods of economic stability or growth can drive stronger earnings, resulting in lower P/E ratios if market price remains steady, while retail headwinds or shifts toward online shopping can pressure earnings or compress margins, sometimes inflating historical P/E ratios if price decreases lag behind earnings decline. Additionally, Cato has faced challenges typical of traditional brick-and-mortar fashion retailers, which can cause significant fluctuations in both its stock price & net earnings over time, directly impacting its P/E multiples. As you review CATO's historical data, consider these operational & industry-specific factors to better interpret movements in price, earnings, and P/E ratios throughout the company’s history.

On this page we presented the Cato Historical PE Ratio information for Cato' stock. The average CATO historical PE based on using the annualized quarterly earnings result at each measurement period (for the "E" in the PE calculation; and the closing price on earnings date as the "P") is 20.7. Meanwhile, using the trailing twelve month (TTM) quarterly earnings result as our method of calculation the "E" value at each measurement period, the average CATO historical PE based on this TTM earnings result method is 18.1. Note: any PE calculations resulting in a value exceeding 500 were discarded as not meaningful. Note: any PE calculations involving negative earnings were discarded as not meaningful.

Let's now compare this CATO historical PE result, against the recent PE: when this page was posted on 5/15/2026, the most recent closing price for CATO had been 2.94, and the most recent quarterly earnings result, annualized, was 1.4. Meanwhile, the most recent TTM earnings summed to 5.55111512312578e-17. From these numbers, we calculate the recent CATO PE on 5/15/2026 based on annualized quarterly EPS was 2.1. Based on CATO's history, that recent PE is low relative to the historical average, with the recent PE 89.9% lower than the historical average PE across our data set for Cato. Looking at the recent CATO PE on 5/15/2026 based on TTM EPS, we calculate the ratio at 52962331617877032.0. Based on CATO's history, that recent PE is elevated relative to the historical average, with the recent PE 292609566949596736.0% higher than the historical average PE across our Cato data set with TTM EPS used in the calculation at each period.

For self directed investors doing their due diligence on CATO or any other given stock, valuation analysis for CATO can greatly benefit from studying the past earnings and resulting PE calculations. This exercise can help inform an analysis as to whether the past earnings trajectory and current versus historical PE ratios justify the current stock value.

That's why we bring you HistoricalPERatio.com to make it easy for investors to investigate Cato PE history or the past PE information for any stock in our coverage universe. And in your continued research we hope you will be sure to check out the further links included for earnings surprises history (beat/miss data) as well as next earnings dates for CATO. Thanks for visiting, and the next time you need to research CATO Historical PE Ratio or the ratio for another stock, we hope you'll think of our site, as your go-to historical PE ratio research resource of choice.