The RDE, Inc. (NASDAQ:RSTN) share price has fared very poorly over the last month, falling by a substantial 26%. Instead of being rewarded, shareholders who have already held through the last twelve months are now sitting on a 35% share price drop.

After such a large drop in price, RDE's price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.7x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the Interactive Media and Services industry in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/S ratios above 1.4x and even P/S above 4x are quite common. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

How RDE Has Been Performing

For instance, RDE's receding revenue in recent times would have to be some food for thought. One possibility is that the P/S is low because investors think the company won't do enough to avoid underperforming the broader industry in the near future. 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 Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/S?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the industry for P/S ratios like RDE's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 13% decrease to the company's top line. The latest three year period has seen an incredible overall rise in revenue, a stark contrast to the last 12 months. Accordingly, shareholders will be pleased, but also have some serious questions to ponder about the last 12 months.

This is in contrast to the rest of the industry, which is expected to grow by 13% over the next year, materially lower than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.

In light of this, it's peculiar that RDE's P/S sits below the majority of other companies. Apparently some shareholders believe the recent performance has exceeded its limits and have been accepting significantly lower selling prices.

The Bottom Line On RDE's P/S

RDE's recently weak share price has pulled its P/S back below other Interactive Media and Services companies. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

Our examination of RDE revealed its three-year revenue trends aren't boosting its P/S anywhere near as much as we would have predicted, given they look better than current industry expectations. Potential investors that are sceptical over continued revenue performance may be preventing the P/S ratio from matching previous strong performance. It appears many are indeed anticipating revenue instability, because the persistence of these recent medium-term conditions would normally provide a boost to the share price.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 4 warning signs for RDE (3 can't be ignored!) that we have uncovered.

If companies with solid past earnings growth is up your alley, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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