Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited's (SGX:J36) price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.3x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the Industrials industry in Singapore, where around half of the companies have P/S ratios above 0.8x and even P/S above 3x are quite common. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/S at face value as there may be an explanation why it's limited.

View our latest analysis for Jardine Matheson Holdings

How Has Jardine Matheson Holdings Performed Recently?

While the industry has experienced revenue growth lately, Jardine Matheson Holdings' revenue has gone into reverse gear, which is not great. The P/S ratio is probably low because investors think this poor revenue performance isn't going to get any better. 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.

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

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The Low P/S Ratio?

In order to justify its P/S ratio, Jardine Matheson Holdings would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the industry.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 6.2% decrease to the company's top line. This has erased any of its gains during the last three years, with practically no change in revenue being achieved in total. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the six analysts covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 0.7% over the next year. With the industry predicted to deliver 64% growth, the company is positioned for a weaker revenue result.

In light of this, it's understandable that Jardine Matheson Holdings' P/S sits below the majority of other companies. It seems most investors are expecting to see limited future growth and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

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.

As we suspected, our examination of Jardine Matheson Holdings' analyst forecasts revealed that its inferior revenue outlook is contributing to its low P/S. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in revenue isn't great enough to justify a higher P/S ratio. The company will need a change of fortune to justify the P/S rising higher in the future.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 3 warning signs for Jardine Matheson Holdings that we have uncovered.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. 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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