China Shenhua Energy Company Limited's (HKG:1088) Low P/E No Reason For Excitement

China Shenhua Energy Company Limited's (HKG:1088) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 6.1x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the market in Hong Kong, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 12x and even P/E's above 25x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/E.

With earnings that are retreating more than the market's of late, China Shenhua Energy has been very sluggish. It seems that many are expecting the dismal earnings performance to persist, which has repressed the P/E. You'd much rather the company wasn't bleeding earnings if you still believe in the business. Or at the very least, you'd be hoping the earnings slide doesn't get any worse if your plan is to pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

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Is There Any Growth For China Shenhua Energy?

In order to justify its P/E ratio, China Shenhua Energy would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 14% decrease to the company's bottom line. As a result, earnings from three years ago have also fallen 6.3% overall. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing earnings over that time.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the analysts covering the company suggest earnings growth is heading into negative territory, declining 1.0% each year over the next three years. That's not great when the rest of the market is expected to grow by 19% per annum.

With this information, we are not surprised that China Shenhua Energy is trading at a P/E lower than the market. Nonetheless, there's no guarantee the P/E has reached a floor yet with earnings going in reverse. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.

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.

We've established that China Shenhua Energy 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. It's hard to see the share price rising strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Don't forget that there may be other risks. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for China Shenhua Energy that you should be aware of.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on China Shenhua Energy, 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. 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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