Raiz Invest Limited (ASX:RZI) Could Be Riskier Than It Looks

With a price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 2.3x Raiz Invest Limited (ASX:RZI) may be sending very bullish signals at the moment, given that almost half of all the Capital Markets companies in Australia have P/S ratios greater than 6x and even P/S higher than 17x are not unusual. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/S.

See our latest analysis for Raiz Invest

How Raiz Invest Has Been Performing

Raiz Invest has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing revenue at a solid pace. Perhaps the market is expecting this acceptable revenue performance to take a dive, which has kept the P/S suppressed. If you 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.

Although there are no analyst estimates available for Raiz Invest, take a look at this free data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.

How Is Raiz Invest's Revenue Growth Trending?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the industry for P/S ratios like Raiz Invest's to be considered reasonable.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew revenue by an impressive 18% last year. Pleasingly, revenue has also lifted 62% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the revenue growth recently has been superb for the company.

Comparing that to the industry, which is only predicted to deliver 9.6% growth in the next 12 months, the company's momentum is stronger based on recent medium-term annualised revenue results.

With this in mind, we find it intriguing that Raiz Invest's P/S isn't as high compared to that of its industry peers. Apparently some shareholders believe the recent performance has exceeded its limits and have been accepting significantly lower selling prices.

The Final Word

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

We're very surprised to see Raiz Invest currently trading on a much lower than expected P/S since its recent three-year growth is higher than the wider industry forecast. When we see strong revenue with faster-than-industry growth, we assume there are some significant underlying risks to the company's ability to make money which is applying downwards pressure on the P/S ratio. While recent revenue trends over the past medium-term suggest that the risk of a price decline is low, investors appear to perceive a likelihood of revenue fluctuations in the future.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 3 warning signs for Raiz Invest (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that we have uncovered.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So if growing profitability aligns with your idea of a great company, take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a low P/E).

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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.