Wasion Holdings (HKG:3393) shares have had a really impressive month, gaining 31%, after some slippage. However, the annual gain of 8.9% 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. One way to gauge market expectations of a stock 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Wasion Holdings

Does Wasion Holdings Have A Relatively High Or Low P/E For Its Industry?

Wasion Holdings's P/E of 11.49 indicates some degree of optimism towards the stock. You can see in the image below that the average P/E (8.7) for companies in the electronic industry is lower than Wasion Holdings's P/E.

Its relatively high P/E ratio indicates that Wasion Holdings shareholders think it will perform better than other companies in its industry classification. The market is optimistic about the future, but that doesn't guarantee future growth. So investors should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

When earnings fall, the 'E' decreases, over time. That means even if the current P/E is low, it will increase over time if the share price stays flat. So while a stock may look cheap based on past earnings, it could be expensive based on future earnings.

It's great to see that Wasion Holdings grew EPS by 14% in the last year. But earnings per share are down 8.1% per year over the last five years.

A Limitation: P/E Ratios Ignore Debt and Cash In The Bank

One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future) by investing in growth. That means taking on debt (or spending its cash).

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.

Wasion Holdings's Balance Sheet

Wasion Holdings's net debt is 0.1% of its market cap. So it doesn't have as many options as it would with net cash, but its debt would not have much of an impact on its P/E ratio.