When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 17x, you may consider Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc. (NYSE:AMR) as a highly attractive investment with its 5.5x P/E ratio. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's so limited.

With earnings that are retreating more than the market's of late, Alpha Metallurgical Resources has been very sluggish. It seems that many are expecting the dismal earnings performance to persist, which has repressed the P/E. If you still like the company, you'd want its earnings trajectory to turn around before making any decisions. If not, then existing shareholders will probably struggle to get excited about the future direction of the share price.

Check out our latest analysis for Alpha Metallurgical Resources

Is There Any Growth For Alpha Metallurgical Resources?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the market for P/E ratios like Alpha Metallurgical Resources' to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, the company's earnings per share growth last year wasn't something to get excited about as it posted a disappointing decline of 37%. 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.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the three analysts covering the company suggest earnings growth is heading into negative territory, declining 43% over the next year. That's not great when the rest of the market is expected to grow by 10%.

With this information, we are not surprised that Alpha Metallurgical Resources is trading at a P/E lower than the market. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.

The Final Word

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 Alpha Metallurgical Resources maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you settle on your opinion, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Alpha Metallurgical Resources (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with a strong growth track record, trading on a low P/E.

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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.