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The Beeks Trading (LON:BKS) share price has done well in the last month, posting a gain of 31%. However, the annual gain of 6.3% wasn't so impressive.
All else being equal, a sharp share price increase should make a stock less attractive to potential investors. In the long term, share prices tend to follow earnings per share, but in the short term prices bounce around in response to short term factors (which are not always obvious). The implication here is that deep value investors might steer clear when expectations of a company are too high. Perhaps the simplest way to get a read on investors' expectations of a business is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). A high P/E implies that investors have high expectations of what a company can achieve compared to a company with a low P/E ratio.
View our latest analysis for Beeks Trading
How Does Beeks Trading's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?
Beeks Trading's P/E of 55.97 indicates some degree of optimism towards the stock. You can see in the image below that the average P/E (30.1) for companies in the it industry is lower than Beeks Trading's P/E.
Its relatively high P/E ratio indicates that Beeks Trading shareholders think it will perform better than other companies in its industry classification. Shareholders are clearly optimistic, but the future is always uncertain. So investors should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling.
How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. If earnings are growing quickly, then the 'E' in the equation will increase faster than it would otherwise. That means unless the share price increases, the P/E will reduce in a few years. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.
Beeks Trading shrunk earnings per share by 12% over the last year. But over the longer term (3 years), earnings per share have increased by 77%.
A Limitation: P/E Ratios Ignore Debt and Cash In The Bank
It's important to note that the P/E ratio considers the market capitalization, not the enterprise value. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings.
Such expenditure might be good or bad, in the long term, but the point here is that the balance sheet is not reflected by this ratio.
How Does Beeks Trading's Debt Impact Its P/E Ratio?
The extra options and safety that comes with Beeks Trading's UK£1.3m net cash position means that it deserves a higher P/E than it would if it had a lot of net debt.