With a median price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of close to 10x in Hong Kong, you could be forgiven for feeling indifferent about China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation Limited's (HKG:3969) P/E ratio of 10.2x. While this might not raise any eyebrows, if the P/E ratio is not justified investors could be missing out on a potential opportunity or ignoring looming disappointment.

China Railway Signal & Communication could be doing better as its earnings have been going backwards lately while most other companies have been seeing positive earnings growth. It might be that many expect the dour earnings performance to strengthen positively, which has kept the P/E from falling. If not, then existing shareholders may be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

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Does Growth Match The P/E?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, China Railway Signal & Communication would need to produce growth that's similar to the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 6.3% decrease to the company's bottom line. As a result, earnings from three years ago have also fallen 3.7% overall. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 24% as estimated by the four analysts watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 22% growth forecast for the broader market.

In light of this, it's curious that China Railway Signal & Communication's P/E sits in line with the majority of other companies. Apparently some shareholders are skeptical of the forecasts and have been accepting lower selling prices.

The Final Word

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.

Our examination of China Railway Signal & Communication's analyst forecasts revealed that its superior earnings outlook isn't contributing to its P/E as much as we would have predicted. There could be some unobserved threats to earnings preventing the P/E ratio from matching the positive outlook. It appears some are indeed anticipating earnings instability, because these conditions should normally provide a boost to the share price.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for China Railway Signal & Communication you should know about.

If you're unsure about the strength of China Railway Signal & Communication's business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

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