This FSTR PE ratio history page last updated 4/8/2026
FSTR Historical PE Ratio Notes
— L.B. Foster Company (NASDAQ: FSTR) is a long-established industrial goods manufacturer serving markets such as rail, infrastructure, and energy. The company provides products & services like rail distribution, friction management, construction materials, and transit systems, primarily targeting North American transportation & energy infrastructure. Understanding FSTR’s historical price/earnings (PE) ratio involves recognizing the cyclical nature of its end markets and the company's exposure to government spending, commodity prices, and industrial activity. When industry demand is strong or infrastructure spending is robust, FSTR tends to see higher earnings, which can result in a lower historical PE ratio if the stock price lags behind earnings growth. Conversely, periods of weak demand or project delays may compress profitability, resulting in either higher PE ratios due to declining earnings, or lower ratios if both price & earnings contract. Investors analyzing FSTR's historical PE should consider macroeconomic cycles, major contract announcements, and regulatory or policy shifts affecting transportation & energy, as these factors have often caused pronounced fluctuations in earnings & valuation multiples across different periods. Historical charts and tables will often reflect these industry-driven dynamics in both price and earnings trends.
How should the FSTR historical PE ratio be determined?
Realizing that PE stands for Price to Earnings ratio, we need two values to compute it: stock price and earnings per share. The stock price at any given date is a known historical value, but what about the earnings number to use?
✔️Accepted answer:
There are a number of different approaches when it comes to calculating a historical PE ratio for a company like L.B. Foster. We like to take our measurements on each of the past quarterly earnings reports. That only leaves the question of whether the earnings number at that quarterly report should be used on an annualized basis, or some other method. We approach this question using three different methods, on this FSTR Historical PE Ratio page.
What is the average historical PE for FSTR based on annualized quarterly earnings?
As we look back through earnings history, what is the resulting PE calculation if at each measurement period we use that quarter's earnings result annualized?
✔️Accepted answer:
The FSTR historical PE ratio using the annualized quarterly earnings method works out to 26.1.
What is the average historical PE for FSTR based on trailing twelve month earnings?
As we look back through earnings history, what is the resulting PE calculation if at each measurement period we use the trailing twelve months combined earnings result in the calculation?
✔️Accepted answer:
The FSTR historical PE ratio using the TTM earnings method works out to 36.1.
What is the average historical PE for FSTR based on median TTM earnings?
As we look back through earnings history, what is the resulting PE calculation if at each measurement period we use the median earnings over the trailing twelve months and annualize that median result in the calculation?
✔️Accepted answer:
The FSTR historical PE ratio using the annualized median TTM earnings method works out to 0.96.
On this page we presented the
FSTR Historical PE Ratio information for L.B. Foster' stock.
The average FSTR 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 26.1. Meanwhile, using the trailing twelve month (TTM) quarterly earnings result as our method of calculation the "E" value at each measurement period, the average FSTR historical PE based on this TTM earnings result method is 36.1. 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 FSTR historical PE result, against the recent PE: when this page was posted on 4/7/2026, the most recent closing price for FSTR had been 29.80, and the most recent quarterly earnings result, annualized, was 0.88. Meanwhile, the most recent TTM earnings summed to 0.69. From these numbers, we calculate the recent FSTR PE on 4/7/2026 based on annualized quarterly EPS was 33.9. Based on FSTR's history, that recent PE is elevated relative to the historical average, with the recent PE 29.9% higher than the historical average PE across our data set for L.B. Foster. Looking at the recent FSTR PE on 4/7/2026 based on TTM EPS, we calculate the ratio at 43.2. Based on FSTR's history, that recent PE is elevated relative to the historical average, with the recent PE 19.7% higher than the historical average PE across our L.B. Foster data set with TTM EPS used in the calculation at each period.
Another interesting FSTR historical PE Ratio calculation we look at is to take the
median earnings per share of the last four quarters for FSTR, and then annualize the resulting value... with that annualized number then being used in the PE calculation. To walk through this math for FSTR, we start with the past four EPS numbers and we first sort them from lowest to highest: -0.20, 0.22, 0.27, and 0.40. We then toss out the highest and lowest result, and then take the average of those two middle numbers — 0.22 and 0.27 — which gives us the median of 0.24. Basically the way to think about this 0.24 number is this: for the trailing four earnings reports, 0.24 marks the "middle ground" number where FSTR has reported a value
higher than 0.24 half the time, and has reported a value
lower than 0.24 half the time. Annualizing that median value then gets us to 0.96/share, which we use as the denominator in our next PE calculation. With 29.80 as the numerator (as of 4/7/2026), the calculation is then 29.80 / 0.96 =
31.0 as the FSTR PE ratio as of 4/7/2026, based on that annualized median value we calculated.
For self directed investors doing their due diligence on FSTR or any other given stock, valuation analysis for FSTR
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
L.B. Foster 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 FSTR. Thanks for visiting, and the next
time you need to research
FSTR 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.