The EVgo, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVGO) share price has done very well over the last month, posting an excellent gain of 116%. This latest share price bounce rounds out a remarkable 303% gain over the last twelve months.
Following the firm bounce in price, given around half the companies in the United States' Specialty Retail industry have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 0.4x, you may consider EVgo as a stock to avoid entirely with its 4.6x P/S ratio. However, the P/S might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
How Has EVgo Performed Recently?
With revenue growth that's superior to most other companies of late, EVgo has been doing relatively well. The P/S is probably high because investors think this strong revenue performance will continue. If not, then existing shareholders might be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.
If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on EVgo.
What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The High P/S?
The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/S as steep as EVgo's is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the industry decidedly.
Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 82% gain to the company's top line. This great performance means it was also able to deliver immense revenue growth over the last three years. Accordingly, shareholders would have been over the moon with those medium-term rates of revenue growth.
Shifting to the future, estimates from the analysts covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 37% per year over the next three years. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is forecast to only expand by 5.8% per annum, which is noticeably less attractive.
With this in mind, it's not hard to understand why EVgo's P/S is high relative to its industry peers. Apparently shareholders aren't keen to offload something that is potentially eyeing a more prosperous future.
What Does EVgo's P/S Mean For Investors?
EVgo's P/S has grown nicely over the last month thanks to a handy boost in the share price. 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.
Our look into EVgo shows that its P/S ratio remains high on the merit of its strong future revenues. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/S as they are quite confident future revenues aren't under threat. Unless these conditions change, they will continue to provide strong support to the share price.
Plus, you should also learn about these 2 warning signs we've spotted with EVgo (including 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable).
If companies with solid past earnings growth is up your alley, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.
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