Earnings Tell The Story For Healthia Limited (ASX:HLA) As Its Stock Soars 30%

Healthia Limited (ASX:HLA) shareholders would be excited to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 30% gain and recovering from prior weakness. The last month tops off a massive increase of 110% in the last year.

After such a large jump in price, given close to half the companies in Australia have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 18x, you may consider Healthia as a stock to avoid entirely with its 38.5x 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.

Recent times have been advantageous for Healthia as its earnings have been rising faster than most other companies. The P/E is probably high because investors think this strong earnings performance will continue. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

Check out our latest analysis for Healthia

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

Does Growth Match The High P/E?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, Healthia would need to produce outstanding growth well in excess of the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 52% gain to the company's bottom line. However, the latest three year period hasn't been as great in aggregate as it didn't manage to provide any growth at all. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 107% as estimated by the lone analyst watching the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 16% growth forecast for the broader market.

With this information, we can see why Healthia 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.

What We Can Learn From Healthia's P/E?

Healthia's P/E is flying high just like its stock has during the last month. 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.

We've established that Healthia maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for a deterioration in earnings isn't great enough to justify a lower P/E ratio. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

You should always think about risks. Case in point, we've spotted 4 warning signs for Healthia you should be aware of.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20x).

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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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