MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) shares have continued their recent momentum with a 27% gain in the last month alone. Not all shareholders will be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down a very disappointing 18% in the last twelve months.

Since its price has surged higher, when almost half of the companies in the United States' IT industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 2.1x, you may consider MongoDB as a stock not worth researching with its 13.5x P/S ratio. However, the P/S might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

What Does MongoDB's Recent Performance Look Like?

With revenue growth that's superior to most other companies of late, MongoDB has been doing relatively well. It seems that many are expecting the strong revenue performance to persist, which has raised the P/S. If not, then existing shareholders might be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The High P/S Ratio?

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

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew revenue by an impressive 22% last year. The strong recent performance means it was also able to grow revenue by 159% in total over the last three years. Therefore, it's fair to say the revenue growth recently has been superb for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 19% per annum as estimated by the analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 12% per year growth forecast for the broader industry.

With this in mind, it's not hard to understand why MongoDB's P/S is high relative to its industry peers. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

The strong share price surge has lead to MongoDB's P/S soaring as well. It's argued the price-to-sales ratio is an inferior measure of value within certain industries, but it can be a powerful business sentiment indicator.

We've established that MongoDB maintains its high P/S on the strength of its forecasted revenue growth being higher than the the rest of the IT industry, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for a deterioration in revenues is quite remote, justifying the elevated P/S ratio. Unless these conditions change, they will continue to provide strong support to the share price.

It is also worth noting that we have found 2 warning signs for MongoDB that you need to take into consideration.

If you're unsure about the strength of MongoDB's business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

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