THOR Industries, Inc.'s (NYSE:THO) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 25.8x might make it look like a sell right now compared to the market in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 18x and even P/E's below 11x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/E.

THOR Industries hasn't been tracking well recently as its declining earnings compare poorly to other companies, which have seen some growth on average. It might be that many expect the dour earnings performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/E from collapsing. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

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Is There Enough Growth For THOR Industries?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as high as THOR Industries' is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 28% decrease to the company's bottom line. The last three years don't look nice either as the company has shrunk EPS by 72% in aggregate. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing earnings over that time.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 31% per annum as estimated by the analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 11% each year growth forecast for the broader market.

In light of this, it's understandable that THOR Industries' P/E sits above the majority of other companies. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

What We Can Learn From THOR Industries' P/E?

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 THOR Industries maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident future earnings aren't under threat. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 1 warning sign for THOR Industries that we have uncovered.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a low P/E).

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