With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 11.2x QBE Insurance Group Limited (ASX:QBE) may be sending bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in Australia have P/E ratios greater than 20x and even P/E's higher than 36x are not unusual. However, the P/E might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Recent times have been advantageous for QBE Insurance Group as its earnings have been rising faster than most other companies. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think this strong earnings performance might be less impressive moving forward. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

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Does Growth Match The Low P/E?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, QBE Insurance Group would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 91% gain to the company's bottom line. Still, EPS has barely risen at all from three years ago in total, which is not ideal. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to slump, contracting by 1.0% per annum during the coming three years according to the analysts following the company. With the market predicted to deliver 18% growth per annum, that's a disappointing outcome.

In light of this, it's understandable that QBE Insurance Group's P/E would sit below the majority of other companies. 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 Bottom Line On QBE Insurance Group's P/E

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 QBE Insurance Group maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/E as they concede future earnings probably won't provide any pleasant surprises. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

You always need to take note of risks, for example - QBE Insurance Group has 1 warning sign we think 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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