【what seasonings can you use on carnivore diet】Does Qilu Expressway Company Limited (HKG:1576) Have A Good P/E Ratio?

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The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). We’ll show how you can use Qilu Expressway Company Limited’s (

HKG:1576

) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. Based on the last twelve months,

Qilu Expressway’s P/E ratio is 4.99

. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 20%.

View our latest analysis for Qilu Expressway

How Do I Calculate A Price To Earnings Ratio?

The

formula for P/E

is:

Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share (in the reporting currency) ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)

Or for Qilu Expressway:

P/E of 4.99 = CN¥1.46

(Note: this is the share price in the reporting currency, namely, CNY )

÷ CN¥0.29 (Based on the year to June 2018.)

Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?

A higher P/E ratio means that buyers have to pay

a higher price

for each HK$1 the company has earned over the last year. That isn’t a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the business’s prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. When earnings grow, the ‘E’ increases, over time. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.

Qilu Expressway shrunk earnings per share by 11% over the last year.

How Does Qilu Expressway’s P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

The P/E ratio essentially measures market expectations of a company. The image below shows that Qilu Expressway has a lower P/E than the average (8.6) P/E for companies in the infrastructure industry.

SEHK:1576 PE PEG Gauge February 1st 19

Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that Qilu Expressway shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. You should delve deeper. I like to check

if company insiders have been buying or selling

.

Don’t Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits

Don’t forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. In theory, a company can lower its future P/E ratio by using cash or debt to invest in growth.

Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context.

Is Debt Impacting Qilu Expressway’s P/E?

Qilu Expressway’s net debt is 14% of its market cap. It would probably deserve a higher P/E ratio if it was net cash, since it would have more options for growth.

The Bottom Line On Qilu Expressway’s P/E Ratio

Qilu Expressway’s P/E is 5 which is below average (10.4) in the HK market. The debt levels are not a major concern, but the lack of EPS growth is likely weighing on sentiment.

Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. If the reality for a company is not as bad as the P/E ratio indicates, then the share price should increase as the market realizes this. We don’t have analyst forecasts, but shareholders might want to examine

this detailed historical graph

of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

But note:

Qilu Expressway may not be the best stock to buy

. So take a peek at this

free

list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20).

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at

[email protected]

.

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