Central China Land Media CO.,LTD's (SZSE:000719) Share Price Is Matching Sentiment Around Its Earnings

Central China Land Media CO.,LTD's (SZSE:000719) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 7.3x might make it look like a strong buy right now compared to the market in China, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 28x and even P/E's above 52x are quite common. However, the P/E might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Central China Land MediaLTD certainly has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings more than most other companies. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If not, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

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Is There Any Growth For Central China Land MediaLTD?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, Central China Land MediaLTD would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the market.

If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 23%. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 40% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been superb for the company.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to slump, contracting by 8.9% per annum during the coming three years according to the sole analyst following the company. With the market predicted to deliver 24% growth each year, that's a disappointing outcome.

With this information, we are not surprised that Central China Land MediaLTD 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 Final Word

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 Central China Land MediaLTD maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. 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.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider and we've discovered 2 warning signs for Central China Land MediaLTD (1 is significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on Central China Land MediaLTD, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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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.

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