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Dynacor Gold Mines Inc.'s (TSE:DNG) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 11.6x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the market in Canada, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 15x and even P/E's above 38x are quite common. However, the P/E might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
Dynacor Gold Mines certainly has been doing a great job lately as it's been growing earnings at a really rapid pace. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. 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.
Check out our latest analysis for Dynacor Gold Mines
We don't have analyst forecasts, but you can see how recent trends are setting up the company for the future by checking out our free report on Dynacor Gold Mines' earnings, revenue and cash flow.
What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/E?
Dynacor Gold Mines' P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's only expected to deliver limited growth, and importantly, perform worse than the market.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 48% gain to the company's bottom line. The latest three year period has also seen an excellent 78% overall rise in EPS, aided by its short-term performance. Therefore, it's fair to say the earnings growth recently has been superb for the company.
Comparing that to the market, which is only predicted to deliver 1.7% growth in the next 12 months, the company's momentum is stronger based on recent medium-term annualised earnings results.
With this information, we find it odd that Dynacor Gold Mines is trading at a P/E lower than the market. It looks like most investors are not convinced the company can maintain its recent growth rates.
The Final Word
Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.
We've established that Dynacor Gold Mines currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its recent three-year growth is higher than the wider market forecast. When we see strong earnings 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 the persistence of these recent medium-term conditions would normally provide a boost to the share price.