China Customer Relations Centers, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRC) Might Not Be As Mispriced As It Looks
When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 20x, you may consider China Customer Relations Centers, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRC) as a highly attractive investment with its 6.2x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
As an illustration, earnings have deteriorated at China Customer Relations Centers over the last year, which is not ideal at all. It might be that many expect the disappointing earnings performance to continue or accelerate, which has repressed the P/E. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.
Check out our latest analysis for China Customer Relations Centers
We don't have analyst forecasts, but you can see how recent trends are setting up the company for the future by checking out our free report on China Customer Relations Centers' earnings, revenue and cash flow.
How Is China Customer Relations Centers' Growth Trending?
China Customer Relations Centers' P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very poor growth or even falling earnings, and importantly, perform much worse than the market.
If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 19%. Still, the latest three year period has seen an excellent 58% overall rise in EPS, in spite of its unsatisfying short-term performance. Although it's been a bumpy ride, it's still fair to say the earnings growth recently has been more than adequate for the company.
Weighing that recent medium-term earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for expansion of 13% shows it's noticeably more attractive on an annualised basis.
With this information, we find it odd that China Customer Relations Centers is trading at a P/E lower than the market. Apparently some shareholders believe the recent performance has exceeded its limits and have been accepting significantly lower selling prices.
The Key Takeaway
Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.
We've established that China Customer Relations Centers currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its recent three-year growth is higher than the wider market forecast. When we see strong earnings with faster-than-market growth, we assume potential risks are what might be placing significant pressure on the P/E ratio. At least price risks look to be very low if recent medium-term earnings trends continue, but investors seem to think future earnings could see a lot of volatility.
There are also other vital risk factors to consider and we've discovered 3 warning signs for China Customer Relations Centers (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on China Customer Relations Centers, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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