The Shanghai Titan Scientific Co., Ltd. (SHSE:688133) share price has fared very poorly over the last month, falling by a substantial 25%. For any long-term shareholders, the last month ends a year to forget by locking in a 68% share price decline.

In spite of the heavy fall in price, given around half the companies in China have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 31x, you may still consider Shanghai Titan Scientific as a stock to potentially avoid with its 41x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/E.

Shanghai Titan Scientific 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. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

Check out our latest analysis for Shanghai Titan Scientific

Does Growth Match The High P/E?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, Shanghai Titan Scientific would need to produce impressive growth in excess of the market.

If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 41%. The last three years don't look nice either as the company has shrunk EPS by 17% in aggregate. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 143% as estimated by the five analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to only expand by 43%, which is noticeably less attractive.

In light of this, it's understandable that Shanghai Titan Scientific'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.

The Key Takeaway

There's still some solid strength behind Shanghai Titan Scientific's P/E, if not its share price lately. 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 Shanghai Titan Scientific maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident future earnings aren't under threat. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

You should always think about risks. Case in point, we've spotted 3 warning signs for Shanghai Titan Scientific you should be aware of, and 1 of them shouldn't be ignored.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a low P/E).

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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.