When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 17x, you may consider Gogo Inc. (NASDAQ:GOGO) as a highly attractive investment with its 8x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

With its earnings growth in positive territory compared to the declining earnings of most other companies, Gogo has been doing quite well of late. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think the company's earnings are going to fall away like everyone else's soon. If not, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

How Is Gogo's Growth Trending?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, Gogo would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the market.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 70% last year. Although, its longer-term performance hasn't been as strong with three-year EPS growth being relatively non-existent overall. So it appears to us that the company has had a mixed result in terms of growing earnings over that time.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should bring diminished returns, with earnings decreasing 15% per year as estimated by the seven analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the broader market is forecast to expand by 10% per annum, which paints a poor picture.

With this information, we are not surprised that Gogo is trading at a P/E lower than the market. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.

The Bottom Line On Gogo's P/E

Using the price-to-earnings ratio alone to determine if you should sell your stock isn't sensible, however it can be a practical guide to the company's future prospects.

We've established that Gogo maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Having said that, be aware Gogo is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis, you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with a strong growth track record, trading on 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.