China Art Financial Holdings Limited (HKG:1572) shareholders won't be pleased to see that the share price has had a very rough month, dropping 28% and undoing the prior period's positive performance. Instead of being rewarded, shareholders who have already held through the last twelve months are now sitting on a 47% share price drop.

Following the heavy fall in price, China Art Financial Holdings' price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 8.6x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the market in Hong Kong, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 11x and even P/E's above 23x are quite common. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's limited.

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With earnings growth that's exceedingly strong of late, China Art Financial Holdings has been doing very well. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If that doesn't eventuate, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

See our latest analysis for China Art Financial Holdings

Although there are no analyst estimates available for China Art Financial Holdings, take a look at this free data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the market for P/E ratios like China Art Financial Holdings' to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 226% gain to the company's bottom line. However, this wasn't enough as the latest three year period has seen a very unpleasant 68% drop in EPS in aggregate. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Weighing that medium-term earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for expansion of 20% shows it's an unpleasant look.

With this information, we are not surprised that China Art Financial Holdings is trading at a P/E lower than the market. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. There's potential for the P/E to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its profitability.

The Key Takeaway

The softening of China Art Financial Holdings' shares means its P/E is now sitting at a pretty low level. Using the price-to-earnings ratio alone to determine if you should sell your stock isn't sensible, however it can be a practical guide to the company's future prospects.

As we suspected, our examination of China Art Financial Holdings revealed its shrinking earnings over the medium-term are contributing to its low P/E, given the market is set to grow. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/E as they concede future earnings probably won't provide any pleasant surprises. If recent medium-term earnings trends continue, it's hard to see the share price moving strongly in either direction in the near future under these circumstances.

We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 5 warning signs for China Art Financial Holdings (2 don't sit too well with us!) that you need to be mindful of.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than China Art Financial Holdings. 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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