December 26, 2010 by financiallyfreenow
A company with low P/E ratio may not mean that it is attractive (or undervalued) due to the following reasons:
- company has uncertainty over its prospects for earnings
- company is operating in a highly cyclical sector
- company is serving volatile markets
- company is operating in a sector with overcapacity and weak pricing power
- company is operating in a sector with low returns consistently
- company operating in a mature sector, with little prospect for growth
- company is ex growth
- company has poor management with no convincing strategy for growth
- company has poor cash generation
- company has a weak balance sheet
- company has an excellent growth record and prospects for growth
- company is operating in a high-growth sector
- there’s high confidence in company’s forecasts
- predictable/stable returns
- strong market share
- high barriers to entry
- strong pricing power
- high margins and excellent returns
- superior management with excellent growth strategies in place
- strong cash generation
- strong balance sheet
Advantages of P/E ratio:
- easy to compute
- widely used so it’s easy to find a company’s P/E ratio
- takes forecasts into account
- earnings is a measure of what is generated for shareholders
- does not take debt/financial structure of company into account
- gearing up/share buy-backs increase earnings (‘financial engineering’)
- earnings are prone to manipulation by management
- does not take cash generation into account
- presents difficulties in assessing quality of earnings
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