Published on 24 Nov 2022 on Simply Wall St. via Yahoo Finance
Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 19x might make it look like a sell right now compared to the market in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 14x and even P/E's below 8x are quite common. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/E at face value as there may be an explanation why it's lofty.
While the market has experienced earnings growth lately, Alphabet's earnings have gone into reverse gear, which is not great. One possibility is that the P/E is high because investors think this poor earnings performance will turn the corner. If not, then existing shareholders may be extremely nervous about the viability of the share price.
See our latest analysis for Alphabet