In This Article:
With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 4.6x Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. (NYSE:BBW) may be sending very bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in the United States have P/E ratios greater than 15x and even P/E's higher than 31x are not unusual. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
With earnings growth that's exceedingly strong of late, Build-A-Bear Workshop has been doing very well. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If you 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.
View our latest analysis for Build-A-Bear Workshop
We don't have analyst forecasts, but you can see how recent trends are setting up the company for the future by checking out our free report on Build-A-Bear Workshop's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
Does Growth Match The Low P/E?
In order to justify its P/E ratio, Build-A-Bear Workshop would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the market.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 495% gain to the company's bottom line. Although, its longer-term performance hasn't been as strong with three-year EPS growth being relatively non-existent overall. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.
This is in contrast to the rest of the market, which is expected to grow by 9.8% over the next year, materially higher than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.
With this information, we can see why Build-A-Bear Workshop is trading at a P/E lower than the market. It seems most investors are expecting to see the recent limited growth rates continue into the future and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.
What We Can Learn From Build-A-Bear Workshop's P/E?
It's argued the price-to-earnings ratio is an inferior measure of value within certain industries, but it can be a powerful business sentiment indicator.
We've established that Build-A-Bear Workshop maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its recent three-year growth being lower than the wider market forecast, as expected. Right now shareholders are accepting the low P/E as they concede future earnings probably won't provide any pleasant surprises. If recent medium-term earnings trends continue, it's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.