With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 12.8x GF Securities Co., Ltd. (SZSE:000776) may be sending very bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in China have P/E ratios greater than 35x and even P/E's higher than 64x are not unusual. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/E.

With its earnings growth in positive territory compared to the declining earnings of most other companies, GF Securities 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.

See our latest analysis for GF Securities

How Is GF Securities' Growth Trending?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the market for P/E ratios like GF Securities' to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company managed to grow earnings per share by a handy 8.5% last year. Still, lamentably EPS has fallen 17% in aggregate from three years ago, which is disappointing. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 23% as estimated by the eleven analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to expand by 44%, which is noticeably more attractive.

In light of this, it's understandable that GF Securities' P/E sits below the majority of other companies. Apparently many shareholders weren't comfortable holding on while the company is potentially eyeing a less prosperous future.

The Key Takeaway

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.

We've established that GF Securities maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast growth being lower than the wider market, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Plus, you should also learn about these 2 warning signs we've spotted with GF Securities.

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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