When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 16x, you may consider TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) as a stock to potentially avoid with its 22.8x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

TE Connectivity could be doing better as its earnings have been going backwards lately while most other companies have been seeing positive earnings growth. It might be that many expect the dour earnings performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/E from collapsing. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

See our latest analysis for TE Connectivity

Does Growth Match The High P/E?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should outperform the market for P/E ratios like TE Connectivity's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 20% decrease to the company's bottom line. Unfortunately, that's brought it right back to where it started three years ago with EPS growth being virtually non-existent overall during that time. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 14% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be similar to the 13% each year growth forecast for the broader market.

With this information, we find it interesting that TE Connectivity is trading at a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly average growth expectations and are willing to pay up for exposure to the stock. These shareholders may be setting themselves up for disappointment if the P/E falls to levels more in line with the growth outlook.

The Key Takeaway

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 TE Connectivity currently trades on a higher than expected P/E since its forecast growth is only in line with the wider market. Right now we are uncomfortable with the relatively high share price as the predicted future earnings aren't likely to support such positive sentiment for long. This places shareholders' investments at risk and potential investors in danger of paying an unnecessary premium.

A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis for TE Connectivity with six simple checks on some of these key factors.

If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.