Why We're Not Concerned About Petropavlovsk PLC's (LON:POG) Share Price
Petropavlovsk PLC's (LON:POG) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 62.2x might make it look like a strong sell right now compared to the market in the United Kingdom, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 15x and even P/E's below 8x are quite common. However, the P/E might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
With earnings growth that's superior to most other companies of late, Petropavlovsk has been doing relatively well. It seems that many are expecting the strong earnings performance to persist, which has raised the P/E. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.
Check out our latest analysis for Petropavlovsk
If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on Petropavlovsk.
How Is Petropavlovsk's Growth Trending?
The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as steep as Petropavlovsk's is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the market decidedly.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered a decent 9.6% gain to the company's bottom line. Still, lamentably EPS has fallen 20% in aggregate from three years ago, which is disappointing. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.
Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to climb by 118% each year during the coming three years according to the six analysts following the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to only expand by 9.5% per annum, which is noticeably less attractive.
With this information, we can see why Petropavlovsk is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.
What We Can Learn From Petropavlovsk's P/E?
Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.
We've established that Petropavlovsk maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for a deterioration in earnings isn't great enough to justify a lower P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.
We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 2 warning signs for Petropavlovsk (1 is concerning!) that you need to be mindful of.
If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly and trade on P/E's below 20x.
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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