When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 18x, you may consider Vipshop Holdings Limited (NYSE:VIPS) as a highly attractive investment with its 5.7x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

With its earnings growth in positive territory compared to the declining earnings of most other companies, Vipshop Holdings has been doing quite well of late. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, possibly more than the market, which has repressed the P/E. If not, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

How Is Vipshop Holdings' Growth Trending?

Vipshop Holdings' P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very poor growth or even falling earnings, and importantly, perform much worse than the market.

If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 16%. The latest three year period has also seen an excellent 70% overall rise in EPS, aided by its short-term performance. Accordingly, shareholders would have probably welcomed those medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should bring diminished returns, with earnings decreasing 6.5% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. That's not great when the rest of the market is expected to grow by 10% per annum.

In light of this, it's understandable that Vipshop Holdings' P/E would sit below the majority of other companies. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. There's potential for the P/E to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its profitability.

What We Can Learn From Vipshop Holdings' P/E?

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.

As we suspected, our examination of Vipshop Holdings' analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking earnings is contributing to its low P/E. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/E as they concede future earnings probably won't provide any pleasant surprises. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider and we've discovered 2 warning signs for Vipshop Holdings (1 can't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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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.