Full House Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLL) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 29% in the last month, although it is still struggling to make up recently lost ground. Unfortunately, the gains of the last month did little to right the losses of the last year with the stock still down 30% over that time.
Even after such a large jump in price, Full House Resorts' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.4x might still make it look like a buy right now compared to the Hospitality industry in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/S ratios above 1.7x and even P/S above 5x are quite common. However, the P/S might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.
Check out our latest analysis for Full House Resorts
Full House Resorts could be doing better as it's been growing revenue less than most other companies lately. It seems that many are expecting the uninspiring revenue performance to persist, which has repressed the growth of the P/S ratio. If you still like the company, you'd be hoping revenue doesn't get any worse and that you could pick up some stock while it's out of favour.
If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on Full House Resorts.In order to justify its P/S ratio, Full House Resorts would need to produce sluggish growth that's trailing the industry.
If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a worthy increase of 7.4%. Pleasingly, revenue has also lifted 76% in aggregate from three years ago, partly thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the revenue growth recently has been superb for the company.
Looking ahead now, revenue is anticipated to climb by 9.2% each year during the coming three years according to the four analysts following the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is forecast to expand by 15% each year, which is noticeably more attractive.
With this in consideration, its clear as to why Full House Resorts' P/S is falling short industry peers. It seems most investors are expecting to see limited future growth and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.
The latest share price surge wasn't enough to lift Full House Resorts' P/S close to the industry median. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.
We've established that Full House Resorts maintains its low P/S on the weakness of its forecast growth being lower than the wider industry, as expected. At this stage investors feel the potential for an improvement in revenue isn't great enough to justify a higher P/S ratio. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.
You should always think about risks. Case in point, we've spotted 2 warning signs for Full House Resorts you should be aware of, and 1 of them is concerning.
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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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.