CoreCard Corporation (NYSE:CCRD) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 30% gain and recovering from prior weakness. Unfortunately, the gains of the last month did little to right the losses of the last year with the stock still down 41% over that time.

Since its price has surged higher, given close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 17x, you may consider CoreCard as a stock to avoid entirely with its 44.2x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly elevated P/E.

CoreCard has been struggling lately as its earnings have declined faster than most other companies. It might be that many expect the dismal earnings performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/E from collapsing. If not, then existing shareholders may be very nervous about the viability of the share price.

How Is CoreCard's Growth Trending?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as steep as CoreCard's is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the market decidedly.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 60% decrease to the company's bottom line. This means it has also seen a slide in earnings over the longer-term as EPS is down 66% in total over the last three years. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to climb by 31% during the coming year according to the lone analyst following the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to only expand by 13%, which is noticeably less attractive.

In light of this, it's understandable that CoreCard's P/E sits above the majority of other companies. Apparently shareholders aren't keen to offload something that is potentially eyeing a more prosperous future.

What We Can Learn From CoreCard's P/E?

Shares in CoreCard have built up some good momentum lately, which has really inflated its 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.

We've established that CoreCard maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for a deterioration in earnings isn't great enough to justify a lower P/E ratio. Unless these conditions change, they will continue to provide strong support to the share price.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for CoreCard you should know about.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on CoreCard, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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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.