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Unfortunately for some shareholders, the KAR Auction Services (NYSE:KAR) share price has dived 45% in the last thirty days. And that drop will have no doubt have some shareholders concerned that the 74% share price decline, over the last year, has turned them into bagholders. For those wondering, a bagholder is someone who keeps holding a losing stock indefinitely, without taking the time to consider its prospects carefully, going forward.
All else being equal, a share price drop should make a stock more attractive to potential investors. In the long term, share prices tend to follow earnings per share, but in the short term prices bounce around in response to short term factors (which are not always obvious). The implication here is that long term investors have an opportunity when expectations of a company are too low. Perhaps the simplest way to get a read on investors' expectations of a business is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). A high P/E implies that investors have high expectations of what a company can achieve compared to a company with a low P/E ratio.
See our latest analysis for KAR Auction Services
Does KAR Auction Services Have A Relatively High Or Low P/E For Its Industry?
KAR Auction Services's P/E of 18.23 indicates relatively low sentiment towards the stock. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (20.2) for companies in the commercial services industry is higher than KAR Auction Services's P/E.
Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that KAR Auction Services shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. Many investors like to buy stocks when the market is pessimistic about their prospects. It is arguably worth checking if insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued.
How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios
If earnings fall then in the future the 'E' will be lower. That means unless the share price falls, the P/E will increase in a few years. So while a stock may look cheap based on past earnings, it could be expensive based on future earnings.
KAR Auction Services saw earnings per share decrease by 20% last year. And over the longer term (5 years) earnings per share have decreased 10% annually. This could justify a pessimistic P/E.
Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits
One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. The exact same company would hypothetically deserve a higher P/E ratio if it had a strong balance sheet, than if it had a weak one with lots of debt, because a cashed up company can spend on growth.