With a price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 1.2x Jiangsu SOPO Chemical Co. Ltd. (SHSE:600746) may be sending bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all the Chemicals companies in China have P/S ratios greater than 2.1x and even P/S higher than 5x are not unusual. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

What Does Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's P/S Mean For Shareholders?

Jiangsu SOPO Chemical has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing revenue at a solid pace. One possibility is that the P/S is low because investors think this respectable revenue growth might actually underperform 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.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The Low P/S Ratio?

Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's only expected to deliver limited growth, and importantly, perform worse than the industry.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew revenue by an impressive 26% last year. Still, revenue has fallen 10% in total from three years ago, which is quite disappointing. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 21% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this in mind, we understand why Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's P/S is lower than most of its industry peers. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/S has reached a floor yet with revenue going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent revenue trends are already weighing down the shares.

The Bottom Line On Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's P/S

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.

As we suspected, our examination of Jiangsu SOPO Chemical revealed its shrinking revenue over the medium-term is contributing to its low P/S, given the industry is set to grow. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/S as they concede future revenue probably won't provide any pleasant surprises either. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis for Jiangsu SOPO Chemical with six simple checks on some of these key factors.

If strong companies turning a profit tickle your fancy, then you'll want to check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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