Yahoo Finance There's No Escaping Seven West Media Limited's (ASX:SWM) Muted Earnings Despite A 27% Share Price Rise
Seven West Media Limited (ASX:SWM) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 27% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. Looking further back, the 17% rise over the last twelve months isn't too bad notwithstanding the strength over the last 30 days.
Even after such a large jump in price, Seven West Media's price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 4x might still make it look like a strong buy right now compared to the market in Australia, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 16x and even P/E's above 32x are quite common. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's so limited.
Seven West Media hasn't been tracking well recently as its declining earnings compare poorly to other companies, which have seen some growth on average. The P/E is probably low because investors think this poor earnings performance isn't going to get any better. If this is the case, then existing shareholders will probably struggle to get excited about the future direction of the share price.
Check out our latest analysis for Seven West Media
If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on Seven West Media.
How Is Seven West Media's Growth Trending?
There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the market for P/E ratios like Seven West Media's to be considered reasonable.
If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 35%. At least EPS has managed not to go completely backwards from three years ago in aggregate, thanks to the earlier period of growth. So it appears to us that the company has had a mixed result in terms of growing earnings over that time.
Shifting to the future, estimates from the eleven analysts covering the company suggest earnings growth is heading into negative territory, declining 7.6% each year over the next three years. With the market predicted to deliver 12% growth each year, that's a disappointing outcome.
With this information, we are not surprised that Seven West Media is trading at a P/E lower than the market. However, shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.
The Key Takeaway
Shares in Seven West Media are going to need a lot more upward momentum to get the company's P/E out of its slump. While the price-to-earnings ratio shouldn't be the defining factor in whether you buy a stock or not, it's quite a capable barometer of earnings expectations.
As we suspected, our examination of Seven West Media's analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking earnings is contributing to its low P/E. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.
Plus, you should also learn about these 4 warning signs we've spotted with Seven West Media (including 1 which is a bit concerning).
You might be able to find a better investment than Seven West Media. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20x (but have proven they can grow earnings).
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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.
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