L.K. Technology Holdings Limited (HKG:558) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 27% gain and recovering from prior weakness. Unfortunately, the gains of the last month did little to right the losses of the last year with the stock still down 50% over that time.
Even after such a large jump in price, there still wouldn't be many who think L.K. Technology Holdings' price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 11.3x is worth a mention when the median P/E in Hong Kong is similar at about 9x. Although, it's not wise to simply ignore the P/E without explanation as investors may be disregarding a distinct opportunity or a costly mistake.
L.K. Technology Holdings 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 strengthen positively, which has kept the P/E from falling. If not, then existing shareholders may be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.
Does Growth Match The P/E?
L.K. Technology Holdings' P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's only expected to deliver moderate growth, and importantly, perform in line with the market.
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 19%. However, a few very strong years before that means that it was still able to grow EPS by an impressive 345% in total over the last three years. So we can start by confirming that the company has generally done a very good job of growing earnings over that time, even though it had some hiccups along the way.
Shifting to the future, estimates from the eight analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 22% each year over the next three years. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to only expand by 16% each year, which is noticeably less attractive.
In light of this, it's curious that L.K. Technology Holdings' P/E sits in line with the majority of other companies. It may be that most investors aren't convinced the company can achieve future growth expectations.
What We Can Learn From L.K. Technology Holdings' P/E?
L.K. Technology Holdings' stock has a lot of momentum behind it lately, which has brought its P/E level with the market. We'd say the price-to-earnings ratio's power isn't primarily as a valuation instrument but rather to gauge current investor sentiment and future expectations.
We've established that L.K. Technology Holdings currently trades on a lower than expected P/E since its forecast growth is higher than the wider market. There could be some unobserved threats to earnings preventing the P/E ratio from matching the positive outlook. At least the risk of a price drop looks to be subdued, but investors seem to think future earnings could see some volatility.
A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for L.K. Technology Holdings with six simple checks.
If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on L.K. Technology Holdings, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.
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