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ITT Inc.'s (NYSE:ITT) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?

It is hard to get excited after looking at ITT's (NYSE:ITT) recent performance, when its stock has declined 9.0% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. In this article, we decided to focus on ITT's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for ITT

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 ITT is:

15% = US$316m ÷ US$2.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.15.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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.

ITT's Earnings Growth And 15% ROE

To begin with, ITT seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. Yet, ITT has posted measly growth of 4.6% over the past five years. This is generally not the case as when a company has a high rate of return it should usually also have a high earnings growth rate. Such a scenario is likely to take place when a company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that ITT's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 10.0% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is ITT worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether ITT is currently mispriced by the market.

Is ITT Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

ITT's low three-year median payout ratio of 18% (or a retention ratio of 82%) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth. However, the low earnings growth number doesn't reflect this as high growth usually follows high profit retention. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Additionally, ITT has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 17%. As a result, ITT's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 16% for future ROE.

Summary

In total, it does look like ITT has some positive aspects to its business. 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. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.

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