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Are Robust Financials Driving The Recent Rally In HighPeak Energy, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:HPK) Stock?

HighPeak Energy (NASDAQ:HPK) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 5.9% over the last week. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Particularly, we will be paying attention to HighPeak Energy's ROE today.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for HighPeak Energy

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

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

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So, based on the above formula, the ROE for HighPeak Energy is:

11% = US$172m ÷ US$1.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.11 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

HighPeak Energy's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

At first glance, HighPeak Energy seems to have a decent ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 18%, we aren't very excited. Still, we can see that HighPeak Energy has seen a remarkable net income growth of 69% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place. However, not to forget, the company does have a decent ROE to begin with, just that it is lower than the industry average. So this certainly also provides some context to the high earnings growth seen by the company.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that HighPeak Energy's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 38% in the same period, which is great to see.

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. What is HPK worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether HPK is currently mispriced by the market.

Is HighPeak Energy Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

HighPeak Energy has a really low three-year median payout ratio of 6.9%, meaning that it has the remaining 93% left over to reinvest into its business. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Moreover, HighPeak Energy is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of three years of paying a dividend.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with HighPeak Energy's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company has seen significant growth in its earnings backed by a respectable ROE and a high reinvestment rate. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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.