Despite an already strong run, Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) shares have been powering on, with a gain of 26% in the last thirty days. The last month tops off a massive increase of 106% in the last year.

Since its price has surged higher, when almost half of the companies in the United States' Communications industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 1.1x, you may consider Ciena as a stock not worth researching with its 3.2x P/S ratio. However, the P/S might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

How Ciena Has Been Performing

Ciena could be doing better as its revenue has been going backwards lately while most other companies have been seeing positive revenue growth. It might be that many expect the dour revenue performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/S from collapsing. If not, then existing shareholders may be extremely nervous about the viability of the share price.

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

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far outperform the industry for P/S ratios like Ciena's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 4.8% decrease to the company's top line. This has soured the latest three-year period, which nevertheless managed to deliver a decent 18% overall rise in revenue. Accordingly, while they would have preferred to keep the run going, shareholders would be roughly satisfied with the medium-term rates of revenue growth.

Looking ahead now, revenue is anticipated to climb by 7.4% per annum during the coming three years according to the analysts following the company. That's shaping up to be materially lower than the 11% each year growth forecast for the broader industry.

With this in consideration, we believe it doesn't make sense that Ciena's P/S is outpacing its industry peers. Apparently many investors in the company are way more bullish than analysts indicate and aren't willing to let go of their stock at any price. There's a good chance these shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with the growth outlook.

What We Can Learn From Ciena's P/S?

Ciena's P/S has grown nicely over the last month thanks to a handy boost in the share price. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

It comes as a surprise to see Ciena trade at such a high P/S given the revenue forecasts look less than stellar. When we see a weak revenue outlook, we suspect the share price faces a much greater risk of declining, bringing back down the P/S figures. Unless these conditions improve markedly, it's very challenging to accept these prices as being reasonable.

Don't forget that there may be other risks. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Ciena that you should be aware of.

If you're unsure about the strength of Ciena'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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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.