When close to half the companies in Hong Kong have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 12x, you may consider Kangda International Environmental Company Limited (HKG:6136) as a highly attractive investment with its 4.3x P/E ratio. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's so limited.

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Kangda International Environmental certainly has been doing a great job lately as it's been growing earnings at a really rapid pace. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think this strong earnings growth might actually underperform the broader market in the near future. 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.

View our latest analysis for Kangda International Environmental

We don't have analyst forecasts, but you can see how recent trends are setting up the company for the future by checking out our free report on Kangda International Environmental's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Is There Any Growth For Kangda International Environmental?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as depressed as Kangda International Environmental's is when the company's growth is on track to lag the market decidedly.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 35% last year. However, this wasn't enough as the latest three year period has seen a very unpleasant 59% drop in EPS in aggregate. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing earnings over that time.

Weighing that medium-term earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for expansion of 19% shows it's an unpleasant look.

With this information, we are not surprised that Kangda International Environmental is trading at a P/E lower than the market. However, we think shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term, which could set up shareholders for future disappointment. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent earnings trends are already weighing down the shares.

The Final Word

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 Kangda International Environmental maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its sliding earnings over the medium-term, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. 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.

Having said that, be aware Kangda International Environmental is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, you should know about.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than Kangda International Environmental. 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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