Compañía de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. (NYSE:BVN) shares have continued their recent momentum with a 26% gain in the last month alone. The last month tops off a massive increase of 135% in the last year.
In spite of the firm bounce in price, given about half the companies in the United States have price-to-earnings ratios (or "P/E's") above 20x, you may still consider Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA as an attractive investment with its 17x P/E ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/E.
Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA certainly has been doing a good job lately as it's been growing earnings more than most other companies. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think this strong earnings performance might be less impressive moving forward. 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.
See our latest analysis for Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA
In order to justify its P/E ratio, Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the market.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 18% gain to the company's bottom line. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 200% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been superb for the company.
Shifting to the future, estimates from the six analysts covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 71% over the next year. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 16% growth forecast for the broader market.
In light of this, it's peculiar that Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can achieve future growth expectations.
Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA's stock might have been given a solid boost, but its P/E certainly hasn't reached any great heights. 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 Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its forecast growth is higher than the wider market. When we see a strong earnings outlook with faster-than-market growth, we assume potential risks are what might be placing significant pressure on the P/E ratio. It appears many are indeed anticipating earnings instability, because these conditions should normally provide a boost to the share price.
A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA with six simple checks.
Of course, you might also be able to find a better stock than Compañía de Minas BuenaventuraA. 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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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.