The P/E driver tree — three levers, one filed

mentor: A multiple is a price for a stream of earnings, and exactly three levers move it: how fast the stream grows, the return the market requires to wait for it, and how much of it is paid out along the way. Every P/E conversation is one of these three wearing a costume.

Below, three described scenarios — teaching hypotheticals about the mechanics, not readings of any company. Assign each to the one driver it moves. The filed panel shows the only driver a filing can evidence: the payout legs. Growth expectations and the required return live in the market and appear in no filing.

Trace each scenario to the single input of the multiple it changes: the growth of the earnings stream, the required return that discounts it, or the payout share distributed rather than retained. One driver per scenario.