What Is IMAX's (NYSE:IMAX) P/E Ratio After Its Share Price Tanked?
Unfortunately for some shareholders, the IMAX (NYSE:IMAX) share price has dived 34% in the last thirty days. Indeed the recent decline has arguably caused some bitterness for shareholders who have held through the 55% drop over twelve months.
Assuming nothing else has changed, a lower share price makes a stock more attractive to potential buyers. While the market sentiment towards a stock is very changeable, in the long run, the share price will tend to move in the same direction as earnings per share. So, on certain occasions, long term focussed investors try to take advantage of pessimistic expectations to buy shares at a better price. Perhaps the simplest way to get a read on investors' expectations of a business is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). A high P/E implies that investors have high expectations of what a company can achieve compared to a company with a low P/E ratio.
Check out our latest analysis for IMAX
How Does IMAX's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?
IMAX's P/E of 13.41 indicates relatively low sentiment towards the stock. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (18.7) for companies in the entertainment industry is higher than IMAX's P/E.
Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that IMAX shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. If you consider the stock interesting, further research is recommended. For example, I often monitor director buying and selling.
How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. If earnings are growing quickly, then the 'E' in the equation will increase faster than it would otherwise. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.
IMAX's 111% EPS improvement over the last year was like bamboo growth after rain; rapid and impressive. Even better, EPS is up 22% per year over three years. So we'd absolutely expect it to have a relatively high P/E ratio.
Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits
One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings.
Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context.
So What Does IMAX's Balance Sheet Tell Us?
IMAX has net cash of US$91m. This is fairly high at 15% of its market capitalization. That might mean balance sheet strength is important to the business, but should also help push the P/E a bit higher than it would otherwise be.
The Bottom Line On IMAX's P/E Ratio
IMAX trades on a P/E ratio of 13.4, which is fairly close to the US market average of 13.4. Its net cash position is the cherry on top of its superb EPS growth. So at a glance we're a bit surprised that IMAX does not have a higher P/E ratio. Given IMAX's P/E ratio has declined from 20.2 to 13.4 in the last month, we know for sure that the market is significantly less confident about the business today, than it was back then. For those who don't like to trade against momentum, that could be a warning sign, but a contrarian investor might want to take a closer look.
Investors should be looking to buy stocks that the market is wrong about. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock.
But note: IMAX may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20).
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.
