With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 21.5x Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) may be sending bearish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in the United States have P/E ratios under 17x and even P/E's lower than 9x are not unusual. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's as high as it is.

With earnings that are retreating more than the market's of late, Amkor Technology has been very sluggish. One possibility is that the P/E is high because investors think the company will turn things around completely and accelerate past most others in the market. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

Does Growth Match The High P/E?

Amkor Technology's P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver solid growth, and importantly, perform better than the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 42% decrease to the company's bottom line. This means it has also seen a slide in earnings over the longer-term as EPS is down 6.8% in total over the last three years. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing earnings over that time.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 25% each year as estimated by the seven analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 9.8% per annum growth forecast for the broader market.

With this information, we can see why Amkor Technology is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

The Bottom Line On Amkor Technology's P/E

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.

We've established that Amkor Technology maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident future earnings aren't under threat. Unless these conditions change, they will continue to provide strong support to the share price.

Having said that, be aware Amkor Technology is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, you should know about.

If you're unsure about the strength of Amkor Technology's business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

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