Earnings Tell The Story For Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG)

When close to half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 14x, you may consider Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) as a stock to avoid entirely with its 44.2x 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.

Booking Holdings certainly has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings more than most other companies. The P/E is probably high because investors think this strong earnings performance will continue. If not, then existing shareholders might be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

Check out our latest analysis for Booking Holdings

pe

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

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 Booking Holdings' to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 274% last year. Despite this strong recent growth, it's still struggling to catch up as its three-year EPS frustratingly shrank by 58% overall. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been undesirable for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 60% per year as estimated by the analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is forecast to only expand by 9.6% each year, which is noticeably less attractive.

With this information, we can see why Booking Holdings is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. Apparently shareholders aren't keen to offload something that is potentially eyeing a more prosperous future.

The Key Takeaway

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

As we suspected, our examination of Booking Holdings' 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. Unless these conditions change, they will continue to provide strong support to the share price.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Booking Holdings you should know about.

If you're unsure about the strength of Booking Holdings' business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here