Alignment Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALHC) shares have had a really impressive month, gaining 41% after a shaky period beforehand. The bad news is that even after the stocks recovery in the last 30 days, shareholders are still underwater by about 3.8% over the last year.

In spite of the firm bounce in price, it would still be understandable if you think Alignment Healthcare is a stock with good investment prospects with a price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") of 0.6x, considering almost half the companies in the United States' Healthcare industry have P/S ratios above 1.2x. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/S at face value as there may be an explanation why it's limited.

What Does Alignment Healthcare's P/S Mean For Shareholders?

With revenue growth that's superior to most other companies of late, Alignment Healthcare has been doing relatively well. It might be that many expect the strong revenue performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the share price, and thus the P/S ratio. If the company manages to stay the course, then investors should be rewarded with a share price that matches its revenue figures.

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

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/S as low as Alignment Healthcare's is when the company's growth is on track to lag the industry.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 32% gain to the company's top line. Pleasingly, revenue has also lifted 101% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. So we can start by confirming that the company has done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the ten analysts covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 24% per year over the next three years. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 7.5% per annum growth forecast for the broader industry.

In light of this, it's peculiar that Alignment Healthcare's P/S sits below the majority of other companies. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can achieve future growth expectations.

What We Can Learn From Alignment Healthcare's P/S?

Despite Alignment Healthcare's share price climbing recently, its P/S still lags most other companies. It's argued the price-to-sales ratio is an inferior measure of value within certain industries, but it can be a powerful business sentiment indicator.

Alignment Healthcare's analyst forecasts revealed that its superior revenue outlook isn't contributing to its P/S anywhere near as much as we would have predicted. The reason for this depressed P/S could potentially be found in the risks the market is pricing in. At least price risks look to be very low, but investors seem to think future revenues could see a lot of volatility.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider before investing and we've discovered 3 warning signs for Alignment Healthcare that you should be aware of.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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