Should We Worry About ePlus inc.’s (NASDAQ:PLUS) P/E Ratio?

This article is for investors who would like to improve their understanding of price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). To keep it practical, we’ll show how ePlus inc.’s (NASDAQ:PLUS) P/E ratio could help you assess the value on offer. ePlus has a price to earnings ratio of 20.82, based on the last twelve months. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 4.8%.

Check out our latest analysis for ePlus

How Do You Calculate A P/E Ratio?

The formula for P/E is:

Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price ÷ Earnings per Share (EPS)

Or for ePlus:

P/E of 20.82 = $87.94 ÷ $4.22 (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.)

Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?

A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying a higher price for each $1 of company earnings. That isn’t necessarily good or bad, but a high P/E implies relatively high expectations of what a company can achieve in the future.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

Earnings growth rates have a big influence on P/E ratios. That’s because companies that grow earnings per share quickly will rapidly increase the ‘E’ in the equation. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. Then, a lower P/E should attract more buyers, pushing the share price up.

ePlus’s earnings per share grew by -3.0% in the last twelve months. And it has bolstered its earnings per share by 12% per year over the last five years.

How Does ePlus’s P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

We can get an indication of market expectations by looking at the P/E ratio. You can see in the image below that the average P/E (19.4) for companies in the electronic industry is roughly the same as ePlus’s P/E.

Its P/E ratio suggests that ePlus shareholders think that in the future it will perform about the same as other companies in its industry classification. If the company has better than average prospects, then the market might be underestimating it. I inform my view byby checking management tenure and remuneration, among other things.

Don’t Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits

The ‘Price’ in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings.

Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context.

Is Debt Impacting ePlus’s P/E?

Net debt totals just 8.9% of ePlus’s market cap. The market might award it a higher P/E ratio if it had net cash, but its unlikely this low level of net borrowing is having a big impact on the P/E multiple.

The Verdict On ePlus’s P/E Ratio

ePlus’s P/E is 20.8 which is above average (17.4) in the US market. Given the debt is only modest, and earnings are already moving in the right direction, it’s not surprising that the market expects continued improvement.

When the market is wrong about a stock, it gives savvy investors an opportunity. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, ‘In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.’ So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock.