The Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE:DQ) share price has softened a substantial 26% over the previous 30 days, handing back much of the gains the stock has made lately. The drop over the last 30 days has capped off a tough year for shareholders, with the share price down 28% in that time.

After such a large drop in price, Daqo New Energy may look like a strong buying opportunity at present with its price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.9x, considering almost half of all companies in the Semiconductor industry in the United States have P/S ratios greater than 4x and even P/S higher than 9x aren't out of the ordinary. However, the P/S might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

What Does Daqo New Energy's Recent Performance Look Like?

Daqo New Energy could be doing better as its revenue has been going backwards lately while most other companies have been seeing positive revenue growth. It seems that many are expecting the poor revenue performance to persist, which has repressed the P/S ratio. If you still 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.

What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/S?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the industry for P/S ratios like Daqo New Energy's 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 51%. This means it has also seen a slide in revenue over the longer-term as revenue is down 14% in total over the last three years. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the nine analysts covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 25% per year over the next three years. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is forecast to expand by 25% per annum, which is not materially different.

In light of this, it's peculiar that Daqo New Energy's P/S sits below the majority of other companies. It may be that most investors are not convinced the company can achieve future growth expectations.

The Key Takeaway

Having almost fallen off a cliff, Daqo New Energy's share price has pulled its P/S way down as well. It's argued the price-to-sales ratio is an inferior measure of value within certain industries, but it can be a powerful business sentiment indicator.

It looks to us like the P/S figures for Daqo New Energy remain low despite growth that is expected to be in line with other companies in the industry. The low P/S could be an indication that the revenue growth estimates are being questioned by the market. It appears some are indeed anticipating revenue instability, because these conditions should normally provide more support to the share price.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider before investing and we've discovered 1 warning sign for Daqo New Energy that you should be aware of.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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