Cash

Q: Where can I see historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios? - D.L., Columbus, Ind.   A: It's good to seek out such numbers, because when you compare them with a company's recent P/E, you get a sense of how overvalued or undervalued it might be. The website ycharts.com has several years' worth of P/E numbers. At morningstar.com, enter the ticker symbol to get to a company's page, then click on the "Valuation" tab. You'll get the current P/E, the average P/E for the company's industry, the S&P 500's current P/E and the company's five-year average P/E. There's even a "forward" P/E based on expected earnings over the coming year.

Two years ago, Marco Gigliello shut down his Mount Laurel jewelry store, Reflections of Venice, and opened a cash-for-gold shop along Route 70 in Cherry Hill. Erlton Cash for Gold has jewelry, coins, and silverware on display, but "nobody buys anything," Gigliello said, standing behind the counter of his shop one afternoon last week. He instead makes his money selling gold to refineries. It's a business that, in a sign of the times, has exploded in Cherry Hill. The township now counts 27 cash-for-gold shops, up from five just five years ago. Now the township wants greater authority to regulate those shops, already subject to a state law requiring that they turn transaction records over to police.

IN THE SPIRIT of the civil-rights leader whose memory we honored this week, I have a dream concerning the just-canceled 29th Philadelphia International Cycling Championship, scheduled for June 2. I have a dream that the event will be rescued. I have a dream that when U.S. Rep. Bob Brady meets Friday at 11 a.m. with city, race and Manayunk officials, he will find a way to offset the rising expenses, the given reason for the cancellation. I have a dream that the event will find a new corporate sponsor to front about $1 million.

Chester County police are on the hunt for a man who they say robbed the Girl Scouts. About 5 p.m. Sunday at the Pathmark grocery at 450 W. Swedesford Rd. in Berwyn, a man came up to a table set up for cookie sales by Troop 4305. He reached into a cash box and grabbed about $20. At the same time he reached into a large plastic jar containing cash donations for the military and took an unknown amount. The man, described as being in his 20s or 30s, did not take any cookies. Police said that both adults and children were by the table at the time.

It's an especially inspired dream for such an uninspired photo. The photograph of Wilt Chamberlain clutching a plain piece of paper on which "100" had been hurriedly scrawled, minutes after he'd reached that unimaginable point total in an NBA game, is at the heart of a 44-year-old Roslyn man's ambition. James Swift, the owner of an athletic apparel company, Swift Flight, hopes to make Chamberlain's legend as famous as Babe Ruth's, his face as familiar as Tiger Woods', his commercial appeal as powerful as Michael Jordan's.

ORGANIZERS of this year's Philadelphia International Cycling Championship have hit a wall - and it's not the one in Manayunk that cyclists climb during the iconic race. TD Bank's decision not to renew its title sponsorship of the race and rising costs from the city forced the Pro Cycling Tour to cancel what would have been the 29th annual championship, said David Chauner, a founder of the event. The race had been scheduled for June 2. Meanwhile, another bicycle race, the Keystone Open, was to be held for the first time this year in Philly but also has been canceled, partly because the race was a "tough sell" to sponsors, said Robin Morton, a spokeswoman for Keystone Open.

Conrail is offering cash settlements to Paulsboro residents and businesses affected by November's leak of toxic vinyl chloride from a ruptured tanker car - if they agree not to sue the company for health problems they might discover later. The offer drew curious residents to the company's claims office, but some are now panning it as an effort to take advantage of a needy community. A lawyer for residents who already have filed suit said settlements might end up on shaky legal ground because the company was not providing legal assistance to residents in weighing the terms.

A security guard at a check-cashing business shot and killed a Camden man who brandished a gun while trying to rob the store early Wednesday, Camden County authorities said. Josean Torres, 19, was shot about 9:30 a.m. at Ben's Check Cashing at Mount Ephraim Avenue and Liberty Street in Camden, according to the Prosecutor's Office. He died at Cooper University Hospital an hour later. Torres and another man allegedly entered the business via a second-floor storage space by knocking a hole through an abandoned building next door.

HARRISBURG - At a time when most government agencies are going begging for funding, the state board that regulates doctors and other medical professionals in Pennsylvania has amassed a $30 million surplus. The board is so flush that 50,000 licensed physicians are getting a pass this year on license fees they pay every other year. The decision last summer to waive the fee - $360 for doctors of medicine, or M.D.s - has raised the hackles of critics who ask why not spend the money for its intended use - policing doctors - rather than giving those same professionals a two-year holiday from their license fee?

Two Camden County men have been charged with breaking into a Pine Hill home and threatening to kill a man and his 3-year-old daughter, then ransacking the home and stealing jewelry, a cellphone and cash, police said. Brandon Cooper and Davon Obryant-Still, both of the Sicklerville section of Winslow Township, were caught during a vehicle stop about 10 minutes after the incident on Friday at the Tall Pines Development. One of them was armed with a silver semi-automatic handgun, police said, and holding the gun to the father's head, forced him into an upstairs bedroom.