When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 17x, you may consider Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE:CAG) as a stock to potentially avoid with its 24.9x P/E ratio. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's as high as it is.

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Conagra Brands hasn't been tracking well recently as its declining earnings compare poorly to other companies, which have seen some growth on average. It might be that many expect the dour earnings performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/E from collapsing. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

See our latest analysis for Conagra Brands

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

Conagra Brands' P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver solid growth, and importantly, perform better than the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 50% decrease to the company's bottom line. The last three years don't look nice either as the company has shrunk EPS by 55% in aggregate. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 38% per year over the next three years. With the market only predicted to deliver 11% each year, the company is positioned for a stronger earnings result.

With this information, we can see why Conagra Brands is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

What We Can Learn From Conagra Brands' P/E?

Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

As we suspected, our examination of Conagra Brands' analyst forecasts revealed that its superior earnings outlook is contributing to its high P/E. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident future earnings aren't under threat. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 4 warning signs for Conagra Brands that you need to be mindful of.

You might be able to find a better investment than Conagra Brands. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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