When close to half the companies in Hong Kong have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") below 11x, you may consider BAIC Motor Corporation Limited (HKG:1958) as a stock to avoid entirely with its 18.5x 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.

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BAIC Motor hasn't been tracking well recently as its declining earnings compare poorly to other companies, which have seen some growth on average. It might be that many expect the dour earnings performance to recover substantially, which has kept the P/E from collapsing. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

Check out our latest analysis for BAIC Motor

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

Is There Enough Growth For BAIC Motor?

BAIC Motor's P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very strong growth, and importantly, perform much better than the market.

If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 67%. As a result, earnings from three years ago have also fallen 77% 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 seven analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 69% per year over the next three years. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 15% per year growth forecast for the broader market.

With this information, we can see why BAIC Motor is trading at such a high P/E compared to the market. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

The Bottom Line On BAIC Motor's P/E

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 BAIC Motor maintains its high P/E on the strength of its forecast growth being higher than the wider market, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident future earnings aren't under threat. It's hard to see the share price falling strongly in the near future under these circumstances.

Plus, you should also learn about this 1 warning sign we've spotted with BAIC Motor.

Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than BAIC Motor. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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