When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 18x, you may consider Hamilton Lane Incorporated (NASDAQ:HLNE) as a stock to avoid entirely with its 34.4x P/E ratio. However, the P/E might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Recent times have been advantageous for Hamilton Lane as its earnings have been rising faster than most other companies. It seems that many are expecting the strong earnings performance to persist, which has raised the P/E. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

View our latest analysis for Hamilton Lane

Keen to find out how analysts think Hamilton Lane's future stacks up against the industry? In that case, our free report is a great place to start.

What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The High P/E?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far outperform the market for P/E ratios like Hamilton Lane's to be considered reasonable.

If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 51%. 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.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 9.7% per year as estimated by the seven analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be similar to the 11% each year growth forecast for the broader market.

With this information, we find it interesting that Hamilton Lane is trading at a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are ignoring the fairly average growth expectations and are willing to pay up for exposure to the stock. These shareholders may be setting themselves up for disappointment if the P/E falls to levels more in line with the growth outlook.

The Key Takeaway

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 Hamilton Lane currently trades on a higher than expected P/E since its forecast growth is only in line with the wider market. When we see an average earnings outlook with market-like growth, we suspect the share price is at risk of declining, sending the high P/E lower. This places shareholders' investments at risk and potential investors in danger of paying an unnecessary premium.

Many other vital risk factors can be found on the company's balance sheet. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for Hamilton Lane with six simple checks.

If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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