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Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Yancoal Australia Ltd (ASX:YAL)?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Yancoal Australia's (ASX:YAL) recent performance, when its stock has declined 6.8% over the past three months. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study Yancoal Australia's ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

See our latest analysis for Yancoal Australia

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for return on equity is:

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Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Yancoal Australia is:

13% = AU$791m ÷ AU$6.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. Another way to think of that is that for every A$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn A$0.13 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Yancoal Australia's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE

To start with, Yancoal Australia's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 16%. As you might expect, the 21% net income decline reported by Yancoal Australia is a bit of a surprise. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

That being said, we compared Yancoal Australia's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 27% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is Yancoal Australia fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Yancoal Australia Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Looking at its three-year median payout ratio of 39% (or a retention ratio of 61%) which is pretty normal, Yancoal Australia's declining earnings is rather baffling as one would expect to see a fair bit of growth when a company is retaining a good portion of its profits. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Additionally, Yancoal Australia has paid dividends over a period of four years, which means that the company's management is rather focused on keeping up its dividend payments, regardless of the shrinking earnings.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Yancoal Australia certainly does have some positive factors to consider. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. To know the 1 risk we have identified for Yancoal Australia visit our risks dashboard for free.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.

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