Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About JB Hi-Fi Limited (ASX:JBH)?

With its stock down 8.5% over the past week, it is easy to disregard JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH). But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. Particularly, we will be paying attention to JB Hi-Fi's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for JB Hi-Fi

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for JB Hi-Fi is:

28% = AU$460m ÷ AU$1.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every A$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn A$0.28 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of JB Hi-Fi's Earnings Growth And 28% ROE

To begin with, JB Hi-Fi has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 15% which is quite remarkable. Probably as a result of this, JB Hi-Fi was able to see a decent net income growth of 6.5% over the last five years.

We then compared JB Hi-Fi's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 9.7% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about JB Hi-Fi's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is JB Hi-Fi Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

JB Hi-Fi has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 65%, meaning that it is left with only 35% to reinvest into its business. This implies that the company has been able to achieve decent earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.

Moreover, JB Hi-Fi is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 63%. As a result, JB Hi-Fi's ROE is not expected to change by much either, which we inferred from the analyst estimate of 28% for future ROE.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that JB Hi-Fi has some positive attributes. Its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely due to the company reinvesting its earnings at a pretty high rate of return. However, given the high ROE, we do think that the company is reinvesting a small portion of its profits. This could likely be preventing the company from growing to its full extent. 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. 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.