Sunpower Group Ltd. (SGX:5GD) shares have had a really impressive month, gaining 26% after a shaky period beforehand. Unfortunately, the gains of the last month did little to right the losses of the last year with the stock still down 17% over that time.

In spite of the firm bounce in price, given about half the companies in Singapore have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 12x, you may still consider Sunpower Group as a highly attractive investment with its 5.6x 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.

Sunpower Group has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings at a solid pace. It might be that many expect the respectable earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

How Is Sunpower Group's Growth Trending?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, Sunpower Group would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 27% gain to the company's bottom line. Still, EPS has barely risen at all from three years ago in total, which is not ideal. So it appears to us that the company has had a mixed result in terms of growing earnings over that time.

Comparing that to the market, which is predicted to deliver 12% growth in the next 12 months, the company's momentum is weaker based on recent medium-term annualised earnings results.

In light of this, it's understandable that Sunpower Group's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. Apparently many shareholders weren't comfortable holding on to something they believe will continue to trail the bourse.

The Key Takeaway

Even after such a strong price move, Sunpower Group's P/E still trails the rest of the market significantly. We'd say the price-to-earnings ratio's power isn't primarily as a valuation instrument but rather to gauge current investor sentiment and future expectations.

As we suspected, our examination of Sunpower Group revealed its three-year earnings trends are contributing to its low P/E, given they look worse than current market expectations. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. If recent medium-term earnings trends continue, it's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 1 warning sign for Sunpower Group that we have uncovered.

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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