When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 17x, you may consider EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) as a highly attractive investment with its 5.4x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/E.

EQT certainly has been doing a good job lately as its earnings growth has been positive while most other companies have been seeing their earnings go backwards. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think the company's earnings are going to fall away like everyone else's soon. 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 EQT

What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/E?

EQT's 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.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 60% last year. Although, its longer-term performance hasn't been as strong with three-year EPS growth being relatively non-existent overall. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to slump, contracting by 53% during the coming year according to the twelve analysts following the company. With the market predicted to deliver 10% growth , that's a disappointing outcome.

In light of this, it's understandable that EQT's P/E would sit below the majority of other companies. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. There's potential for the P/E to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its profitability.

The Bottom Line On EQT'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.

As we suspected, our examination of EQT's analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking earnings is contributing to its low P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

Having said that, be aware EQT is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those can't be ignored.

You might be able to find a better investment than EQT. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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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.