DuZhe Publish&Media Co.,Ltd (SHSE:603999) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 27% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. Unfortunately, despite the strong performance over the last month, the full year gain of 2.2% isn't as attractive.

Following the firm bounce in price, DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd's price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 40.8x might make it look like a sell right now compared to the market in China, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 32x and even P/E's below 19x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/E.

DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd has been doing a decent job lately as it's been growing earnings at a reasonable pace. One possibility is that the P/E is high because investors think this good earnings growth will be enough to outperform the broader market in the near future. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

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

DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd's P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver solid growth, and importantly, perform better than the market.

If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a worthy increase of 5.3%. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 33% in aggregate from three years ago, partly thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been superb for the company.

Weighing that recent medium-term earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for expansion of 40% shows it's noticeably less attractive on an annualised basis.

With this information, we find it concerning that DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd is trading at a P/E higher than the market. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects. There's a good chance existing shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/E falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.

The Key Takeaway

The large bounce in DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd's shares has lifted the company's P/E to a fairly high level. 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.

We've established that DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd currently trades on a much higher than expected P/E since its recent three-year growth is lower than the wider market forecast. When we see weak earnings with slower than market growth, we suspect the share price is at risk of declining, sending the high P/E lower. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve markedly, it's very challenging to accept these prices as being reasonable.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for DuZhe Publish&MediaLtd 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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