Cathay Pacific Airways Limited's (HKG:293) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 7.9x 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 12x and even P/E's above 26x are quite common. However, the P/E might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

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Cathay Pacific Airways certainly has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings more than most other companies. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. 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.

See our latest analysis for Cathay Pacific Airways

Keen to find out how analysts think Cathay Pacific Airways' future stacks up against the industry? In that case, our free report is a great place to start.

How Is Cathay Pacific Airways' Growth Trending?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the market for P/E ratios like Cathay Pacific Airways' to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company managed to grow earnings per share by a handy 5.9% last year. Although, the latest three year period in total hasn't been as good as it didn't manage to provide any growth at all. So it appears to us that the company has had a mixed result in terms of growing earnings over that time.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to climb by 1.0% per annum during the coming three years according to the analysts following the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to expand by 15% each year, which is noticeably more attractive.

In light of this, it's understandable that Cathay Pacific Airways' P/E sits below the majority of other companies. Apparently many shareholders weren't comfortable holding on while the company is potentially eyeing a less prosperous future.

The Bottom Line On Cathay Pacific Airways' P/E

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

As we suspected, our examination of Cathay Pacific Airways' analyst forecasts revealed that its inferior earnings outlook is contributing to its low P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

Having said that, be aware Cathay Pacific Airways is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, you should know about.

If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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