The Elgi Rubber Company Limited (NSE:ELGIRUBCO) share price has fared very poorly over the last month, falling by a substantial 26%. For any long-term shareholders, the last month ends a year to forget by locking in a 62% share price decline.
Following the heavy fall in price, Elgi Rubber may be sending buy signals at present with its price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.7x, considering almost half of all companies in the Machinery industry in India have P/S ratios greater than 2.6x and even P/S higher than 5x aren't out of the ordinary. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
Check out our latest analysis for Elgi Rubber
As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at Elgi Rubber over the last year, which is not ideal at all. One possibility is that the P/S is low because investors think the company won't do enough to avoid underperforming the broader industry in the near future. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.
Want the full picture on earnings, revenue and cash flow for the company? Then our free report on Elgi Rubber will help you shine a light on its historical performance.The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/S as low as Elgi Rubber's is when the company's growth is on track to lag the industry.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 4.2% decrease to the company's top line. As a result, revenue from three years ago have also fallen 10% overall. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of revenue growth.
In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 12% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.
In light of this, it's understandable that Elgi Rubber's P/S would sit below the majority of other companies. However, we think shrinking revenues are unlikely to lead to a stable P/S over the longer term, which could set up shareholders for future disappointment. There's potential for the P/S to fall to even lower levels if the company doesn't improve its top-line growth.
The southerly movements of Elgi Rubber's shares means its P/S is now sitting at a pretty low level. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.
As we suspected, our examination of Elgi Rubber revealed its shrinking revenue over the medium-term is contributing to its low P/S, given the industry is set to grow. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in revenue isn't great enough to justify a higher P/S ratio. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.
Before you take the next step, you should know about the 1 warning sign for Elgi Rubber that we have uncovered.
If you're unsure about the strength of Elgi Rubber's business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.
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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.