Yahoo Finance Will Weakness in Pilbara Minerals Limited's (ASX:PLS) Stock Prove Temporary Given Strong Fundamentals?
Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) has had a rough month with its share price down 8.2%. However, a closer look at its sound financials might cause you to think again. Given that fundamentals usually drive long-term market outcomes, the company is worth looking at. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Pilbara Minerals' 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. 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 Pilbara Minerals
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Pilbara Minerals is:
43% = AU$1.4b ÷ AU$3.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each A$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made A$0.43 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of Pilbara Minerals' Earnings Growth And 43% ROE
To begin with, Pilbara Minerals has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 10% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Under the circumstances, Pilbara Minerals' considerable five year net income growth of 77% was to be expected.
As a next step, we compared Pilbara Minerals' net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 21%.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. Is Pilbara Minerals fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.
Is Pilbara Minerals Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
While the company did pay out a portion of its dividend in the past, it currently doesn't pay a dividend. This is likely what's driving the high earnings growth number discussed above.
Conclusion
Overall, we are quite pleased with Pilbara Minerals' performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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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.
