Lotus Horizon Holdings Limited (HKG:6063) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 35% gain and recovering from prior weakness. The last month tops off a massive increase of 190% in the last year.

Since its price has surged higher, when almost half of the companies in Hong Kong's Construction industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 0.3x, you may consider Lotus Horizon Holdings as a stock probably not worth researching with its 2.1x P/S ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/S.

View our latest analysis for Lotus Horizon Holdings

How Has Lotus Horizon Holdings Performed Recently?

Revenue has risen firmly for Lotus Horizon Holdings recently, which is pleasing to see. It might be that many expect the respectable revenue performance to beat most other companies over the coming period, which has increased investors’ willingness to pay up for the stock. If not, then existing shareholders may be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

Want the full picture on earnings, revenue and cash flow for the company? Then our free report on Lotus Horizon Holdings will help you shine a light on its historical performance.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The High P/S Ratio?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should outperform the industry for P/S ratios like Lotus Horizon Holdings' to be considered reasonable.

If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 27%. Revenue has also lifted 9.9% in aggregate from three years ago, mostly thanks to the last 12 months of growth. So we can start by confirming that the company has actually done a good job of growing revenue over that time.

This is in contrast to the rest of the industry, which is expected to grow by 9.4% over the next year, materially higher than the company's recent medium-term annualised growth rates.

With this information, we find it concerning that Lotus Horizon Holdings is trading at a P/S higher than the industry. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly limited recent growth rates and are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects. Only the boldest would assume these prices are sustainable as a continuation of recent revenue trends is likely to weigh heavily on the share price eventually.

The Final Word

The large bounce in Lotus Horizon Holdings' shares has lifted the company's P/S handsomely. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

Our examination of Lotus Horizon Holdings revealed its poor three-year revenue trends aren't detracting from the P/S as much as we though, given they look worse than current industry expectations. When we see slower than industry revenue growth but an elevated P/S, there's considerable risk of the share price declining, sending the P/S lower. Unless there is a significant improvement in the company's medium-term performance, it will be difficult to prevent the P/S ratio from declining to a more reasonable level.

Plus, you should also learn about these 2 warning signs we've spotted with Lotus Horizon Holdings (including 1 which shouldn't be ignored).

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on Lotus Horizon Holdings, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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