PVH Corp. (NYSE:PVH) shares have continued their recent momentum with a 37% gain in the last month alone. Looking back a bit further, it's encouraging to see the stock is up 74% in the last year.

In spite of the firm bounce in price, PVH's price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 13.9x might still 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 17x and even P/E's above 33x 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 limited.

PVH certainly has been doing a good job lately as its earnings growth has been positive while most other companies have been seeing their earnings go backwards. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think the company's earnings are going to fall away like everyone else's soon. If not, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price.

See our latest analysis for PVH

If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report on PVH.

How Is PVH's Growth Trending?

PVH's P/E ratio would be typical for a company that's only expected to deliver limited growth, and importantly, perform worse than the market.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew earnings per share by an impressive 26% last year. However, the latest three year period hasn't been as great in aggregate as it didn't manage to provide any growth at all. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Looking ahead now, EPS is anticipated to climb by 22% each year during the coming three years according to the analysts following the company. That's shaping up to be materially higher than the 13% per annum growth forecast for the broader market.

In light of this, it's peculiar that PVH's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can achieve future growth expectations.

The Bottom Line On PVH's P/E

The latest share price surge wasn't enough to lift PVH's P/E close to the market median. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

Our examination of PVH's analyst forecasts revealed that its superior earnings outlook isn't contributing to its P/E anywhere near as much as we would have predicted. There could be some major unobserved threats to earnings preventing the P/E ratio from matching the positive outlook. It appears many are indeed anticipating earnings instability, because these conditions should normally provide a boost to the share price.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider before investing and we've discovered 1 warning sign for PVH that you should be aware of.

You might be able to find a better investment than PVH. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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.