Yahoo Finance Is Peninsula Energy Limited (ASX:PEN) Attractive At This PE Ratio?
This article is intended for those of you who are at the beginning of your investing journey and want to begin learning about how to value company based on its current earnings and what are the drawbacks of this method.
Peninsula Energy Limited (ASX:PEN) is trading with a trailing P/E of 4.4x, which is lower than the industry average of 20.9x. While PEN might seem like an attractive stock to buy, it is important to understand the assumptions behind the P/E ratio before you make any investment decisions. Today, I will explain what the P/E ratio is as well as what you should look out for when using it.
See our latest analysis for Peninsula Energy
What you need to know about the P/E ratio
P/E is a popular ratio used for relative valuation. It compares a stock’s price per share to the stock’s earnings per share. A more intuitive way of understanding the P/E ratio is to think of it as how much investors are paying for each dollar of the company’s earnings.
P/E Calculation for PEN
Price-Earnings Ratio = Price per share ÷ Earnings per share
PEN Price-Earnings Ratio = $0.17 ÷ $0.0398 = 4.4x
On its own, the P/E ratio doesn’t tell you much; however, it becomes extremely useful when you compare it with other similar companies. We preferably want to compare the stock’s P/E ratio to the average of companies that have similar features to PEN, such as capital structure and profitability. One way of gathering a peer group is to use firms in the same industry, which is what I’ll do. At 4.4, PEN’s P/E is lower than its industry peers (20.9). This implies that investors are undervaluing each dollar of PEN’s earnings. This multiple is a median of profitable companies of 24 Oil and Gas companies in AU including Paladin Energy, Moreton Resources and Eon NRG. You can think of it like this: the market is suggesting that PEN is a weaker business than the average comparable company.
Assumptions to watch out for
Before you jump to conclusions it is important to realise that our assumptions rests on two assertions. The first is that our “similar companies” are actually similar to PEN, or else the difference in P/E might be a result of other factors. For example, if you compared higher growth firms with PEN, then its P/E would naturally be lower since investors would reward its peers’ higher growth with a higher price. The second assumption that must hold true is that the stocks we are comparing PEN to are fairly valued by the market. If this does not hold, there is a possibility that PEN’s P/E is lower because our peer group is overvalued by the market.
What this means for you:
If your personal research into the stock confirms what the P/E ratio is telling you, it might be a good time to add more of PEN to your portfolio. But keep in mind that the usefulness of relative valuation depends on whether you are comfortable with making the assumptions I mentioned above. Remember that basing your investment decision off one metric alone is certainly not sufficient. There are many things I have not taken into account in this article and the PE ratio is very one-dimensional. If you have not done so already, I urge you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
Financial Health: Are PEN’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.
Past Track Record: Has PEN been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of PEN’s historicals for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
