With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 33.8x IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) may be sending very bearish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in the United States have P/E ratios under 18x and even P/E's lower than 10x are not unusual. However, the P/E might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

IDEX has been struggling lately as its earnings have declined faster than most other companies. 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. If not, then existing shareholders may be very nervous about the viability of the share price.

How Is IDEX's Growth Trending?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as steep as IDEX's is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the market decidedly.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 21% decrease to the company's bottom line. That put a dampener on the good run it was having over the longer-term as its three-year EPS growth is still a noteworthy 14% in total. So we can start by confirming that the company has generally done a good job of growing earnings over that time, even though it had some hiccups along the way.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 19% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. With the market only predicted to deliver 11% per annum, the company is positioned for a stronger earnings result.

With this information, we can see why IDEX is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. Apparently shareholders aren't keen to offload something that is potentially eyeing a more prosperous future.

The Bottom Line On IDEX's P/E

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

As we suspected, our examination of IDEX's analyst forecasts revealed that its superior earnings outlook is contributing to its high P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for a deterioration in earnings isn't great enough to justify a lower P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Many other vital risk factors can be found on the company's balance sheet. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for IDEX with six simple checks.

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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