JLogo Holdings Limited (HKG:8527) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 47% gain and recovering from prior weakness. Still, the 30-day jump doesn't change the fact that longer term shareholders have seen their stock decimated by the 54% share price drop in the last twelve months.
Even after such a large jump in price, it's still not a stretch to say that JLogo Holdings' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 1.1x right now seems quite "middle-of-the-road" compared to the Hospitality industry in Hong Kong, where the median P/S ratio is around 0.7x. While this might not raise any eyebrows, if the P/S ratio is not justified investors could be missing out on a potential opportunity or ignoring looming disappointment.
How JLogo Holdings Has Been Performing
For instance, JLogo Holdings' receding revenue in recent times would have to be some food for thought. Perhaps investors believe the recent revenue performance is enough to keep in line with the industry, which is keeping the P/S from dropping off. If you like the company, you'd at least be hoping this is the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's not quite in favour.
Although there are no analyst estimates available for JLogo Holdings, take a look at this free data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.
Do Revenue Forecasts Match The P/S Ratio?
There's an inherent assumption that a company should be matching the industry for P/S ratios like JLogo Holdings' to be considered reasonable.
Taking a look back first, the company's revenue growth last year wasn't something to get excited about as it posted a disappointing decline of 12%. At least revenue has managed not to go completely backwards from three years ago in aggregate, thanks to the earlier period of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say that revenue growth has been inconsistent recently for the company.
This is in contrast to the rest of the industry, which is expected to grow by 17% over the next year, materially higher than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.
With this in mind, we find it intriguing that JLogo Holdings' P/S is comparable to that of its industry peers. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are willing to pay up for exposure to the stock. They may be setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.
What Does JLogo Holdings' P/S Mean For Investors?
JLogo Holdings' stock has a lot of momentum behind it lately, which has brought its P/S level with the rest of the industry. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.
We've established that JLogo Holdings' average P/S is a bit surprising since its recent three-year growth is lower than the wider industry forecast. When we see weak revenue with slower than industry growth, we suspect the share price is at risk of declining, bringing the P/S back in line with expectations. Unless there is a significant improvement in the company's medium-term performance, it will be difficult to prevent the P/S ratio from declining to a more reasonable level.
Don't forget that there may be other risks. For instance, we've identified 4 warning signs for JLogo Holdings (3 are a bit concerning) you should be aware of.
If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on JLogo Holdings, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.
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