Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group Co., Ltd. (SHSE:603729) shareholders have had their patience rewarded with a 31% share price jump in the last month. Looking back a bit further, it's encouraging to see the stock is up 55% in the last year.

Following the firm bounce in price, when almost half of the companies in China's Media industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 2.7x, you may consider Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group as a stock not worth researching with its 5.7x P/S ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly elevated P/S.

View our latest analysis for Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group

What Does Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group's Recent Performance Look Like?

As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group over the last year, which is not ideal at all. Perhaps the market believes the company can do enough to outperform the rest of the industry in the near future, which is keeping the P/S ratio high. If not, then existing shareholders may be quite nervous about the viability of the share price.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The High P/S Ratio?

Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group's P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very strong growth, and importantly, perform much better than the industry.

In reviewing the last year of financials, we were disheartened to see the company's revenues fell to the tune of 30%. The last three years don't look nice either as the company has shrunk revenue by 45% in aggregate. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 22% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this in mind, we find it worrying that Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group's P/S exceeds that of its industry peers. Apparently many investors in the company are way more bullish than recent times would indicate and aren't willing to let go of their stock at any price. Only the boldest would assume these prices are sustainable as a continuation of recent revenue trends is likely to weigh heavily on the share price eventually.

The Final Word

Shares in Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group have seen a strong upwards swing lately, which has really helped boost its P/S figure. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

We've established that Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group currently trades on a much higher than expected P/S since its recent revenues have been in decline over the medium-term. With a revenue decline on investors' minds, the likelihood of a souring sentiment is quite high which could send the P/S back in line with what we'd expect. Unless the the circumstances surrounding the recent medium-term improve, it wouldn't be wrong to expect a a difficult period ahead for the company's shareholders.

It is also worth noting that we have found 1 warning sign for Shanghai LongYun Cultural Creation & Technology Group that you need to take into consideration.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. 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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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.