With a price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 6.8x CK Hutchison Holdings Limited (HKG:1) may be sending bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all companies in Hong Kong have P/E ratios greater than 10x and even P/E's higher than 20x are not unusual. However, the P/E might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

CK Hutchison Holdings could be doing better as its earnings have been going backwards lately while most other companies have been seeing positive earnings growth. It seems that many are expecting the dour earnings performance to persist, which has repressed the P/E. If you still 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 CK Hutchison Holdings

If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on CK Hutchison Holdings.

Is There Any Growth For CK Hutchison Holdings?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, CK Hutchison Holdings would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 22% decrease to the company's bottom line. As a result, earnings from three years ago have also fallen 34% overall. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the six analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 11% per annum over the next three years. That's shaping up to be similar to the 13% each year growth forecast for the broader market.

In light of this, it's peculiar that CK Hutchison Holdings' P/E sits below the majority of other companies. It may be that most investors are not convinced the company can achieve future growth expectations.

The Bottom Line On CK Hutchison Holdings' P/E

Using the price-to-earnings ratio alone to determine if you should sell your stock isn't sensible, however it can be a practical guide to the company's future prospects.

We've established that CK Hutchison Holdings currently trades on a lower than expected P/E since its forecast growth is in line with the wider market. When we see an average earnings outlook with market-like growth, we assume potential risks are what might be placing pressure on the P/E ratio. It appears some are indeed anticipating earnings instability, because these conditions should normally provide more support to the share price.

Having said that, be aware CK Hutchison Holdings is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis, you should know about.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than CK Hutchison Holdings. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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