UFP Industries, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:UFPI) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 14.9x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the market in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 18x and even P/E's above 33x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the reduced P/E.

Recent times haven't been advantageous for UFP Industries as its earnings have been falling quicker than most other companies. The P/E is probably low because investors think this poor earnings performance isn't going to improve at all. If you still like the company, you'd want its earnings trajectory to turn around before making any decisions. If not, then existing shareholders will probably struggle to get excited about the future direction of the share price.

How Is UFP Industries' Growth Trending?

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as low as UFP Industries' is when the company's growth is on track to lag the market.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered a frustrating 26% decrease to the company's bottom line. Still, the latest three year period has seen an excellent 99% overall rise in EPS, in spite of its unsatisfying short-term performance. Accordingly, while they would have preferred to keep the run going, shareholders would probably welcome the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should bring diminished returns, with earnings decreasing 6.1% as estimated by the six analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the broader market is forecast to expand by 11%, which paints a poor picture.

With this information, we are not surprised that UFP Industries is trading at a P/E lower than the market. However, shrinking earnings are unlikely to lead to a stable P/E over the longer term. Even just maintaining these prices could be difficult to achieve as the weak outlook is weighing down the shares.

The Bottom Line On UFP Industries' P/E

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 UFP Industries maintains its low P/E on the weakness of its forecast for sliding earnings, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in earnings isn't great enough to justify a higher P/E ratio. Unless these 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 UFP Industries that we have uncovered.

If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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