With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 5.4x Kumpulan Fima Berhad (KLSE:KFIMA) may be sending very bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in Malaysia have P/E ratios greater than 14x and even P/E's higher than 25x are not unusual. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's so limited.
Kumpulan Fima Berhad certainly has been doing a great job lately as it's been growing earnings at a really rapid pace. 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.
Check out our latest analysis for Kumpulan Fima Berhad
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 Kumpulan Fima Berhad's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
Does Growth Match The Low P/E?
In order to justify its P/E ratio, Kumpulan Fima Berhad would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the market.
If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 63%. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 180% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Accordingly, shareholders would have probably welcomed those medium-term rates of earnings growth.
This is in contrast to the rest of the market, which is expected to grow by 9.2% over the next year, materially lower than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.
In light of this, it's peculiar that Kumpulan Fima Berhad's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. Apparently some shareholders believe the recent performance has exceeded its limits and have been accepting significantly lower selling prices.
The Bottom Line On Kumpulan Fima Berhad's P/E
We'd say the price-to-earnings ratio's power isn't primarily as a valuation instrument but rather to gauge current investor sentiment and future expectations.
We've established that Kumpulan Fima Berhad currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its recent three-year growth is higher than the wider market forecast. There could be some major unobserved threats to earnings preventing the P/E ratio from matching this positive performance. At least price risks look to be very low if recent medium-term earnings trends continue, but investors seem to think future earnings could see a lot of volatility.