Assured Guaranty Ltd.'s (NYSE:AGO) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 5.6x might make it look like a strong buy right now compared to the market in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 17x and even P/E's above 32x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/E.

Recent times have been pleasing for Assured Guaranty as its earnings have risen in spite of the market's earnings going into reverse. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think the company's earnings are going to fall away like everyone else's soon. 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.

What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/E?

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

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 485% last year. The latest three year period has also seen an excellent 167% overall rise in EPS, aided by its short-term performance. Accordingly, shareholders would have probably welcomed those medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the three analysts covering the company suggest earnings growth is heading into negative territory, declining 17% per year over the next three years. With the market predicted to deliver 10% growth per annum, that's a disappointing outcome.

With this information, we are not surprised that Assured Guaranty is trading at a P/E lower than the market. However, shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.

The Final Word

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 Assured Guaranty's analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking earnings is contributing to its low P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

Before you settle on your opinion, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Assured Guaranty (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that you should be aware of.

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.

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