Wee Hur Holdings Ltd. (SGX:E3B) shares have continued their recent momentum with a 29% gain in the last month alone. The annual gain comes to 174% following the latest surge, making investors sit up and take notice.

Since its price has surged higher, given close to half the companies operating in Singapore's Construction industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 0.5x, you may consider Wee Hur Holdings as a stock to potentially avoid with its 1.9x P/S ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/S.

How Wee Hur Holdings Has Been Performing

Revenue has risen firmly for Wee Hur Holdings recently, which is pleasing to see. One possibility is that the P/S ratio is high because investors think this respectable revenue growth will be enough to outperform the broader industry in the near future. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

How Is Wee Hur Holdings' Revenue Growth Trending?

Wee Hur Holdings' P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver solid growth, and importantly, perform better than the industry.

If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a worthy increase of 11%. Pleasingly, revenue has also lifted 34% in aggregate from three years ago, partly thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Accordingly, shareholders would have definitely welcomed those medium-term rates of revenue growth.

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

With this in mind, we find it worrying that Wee Hur Holdings' P/S exceeds that of its industry peers. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects. There's a good chance existing shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with recent growth rates.

What Does Wee Hur Holdings' P/S Mean For Investors?

Wee Hur Holdings' P/S is on the rise since its shares have risen strongly. While the price-to-sales ratio shouldn't be the defining factor in whether you buy a stock or not, it's quite a capable barometer of revenue expectations.

Our examination of Wee Hur Holdings revealed its poor three-year revenue trends aren't detracting from the P/S as much as we though, given they look worse than current industry expectations. When we see slower than industry revenue growth but an elevated P/S, there's considerable risk of the share price declining, sending the P/S lower. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve markedly, it's very challenging to accept these the share price as being reasonable.

The company's balance sheet is another key area for risk analysis. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for Wee Hur Holdings with six simple checks.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So if growing profitability aligns with your idea of a great company, take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a low P/E).

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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.