Forward Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORD) shareholders that were waiting for something to happen have been dealt a blow with a 27% share price drop in the last month. The recent drop completes a disastrous twelve months for shareholders, who are sitting on a 59% loss during that time.

Since its price has dipped substantially, it would be understandable if you think Forward Industries is a stock with good investment prospects with a price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") of 0.1x, considering almost half the companies in the United States' Luxury industry have P/S ratios above 0.8x. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/S at face value as there may be an explanation why it's limited.

What Does Forward Industries' P/S Mean For Shareholders?

As an illustration, revenue has deteriorated at Forward Industries over the last year, which is not ideal at all. It might be that many expect the disappointing revenue performance to continue or accelerate, which has repressed the P/S. 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.

What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/S?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the industry for P/S ratios like Forward Industries' to be considered reasonable.

In reviewing the last year of financials, we were disheartened to see the company's revenues fell to the tune of 10%. This means it has also seen a slide in revenue over the longer-term as revenue is down 11% in total over the last three years. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 5.7% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this information, we are not surprised that Forward Industries is trading at a P/S lower than the industry. 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. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as recent revenue trends are already weighing down the shares.

The Key Takeaway

Forward Industries' recently weak share price has pulled its P/S back below other Luxury companies. 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 Forward Industries 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. If recent medium-term revenue trends continue, it's hard to see the share price moving strongly in either direction in the near future under these circumstances.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 2 warning signs for Forward Industries that we have uncovered.

If strong companies turning a profit tickle your fancy, then you'll want to check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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