Is The Market Rewarding Fortuna Mining Corp. (TSE:FVI) With A Negative Sentiment As A Result Of Its Mixed Fundamentals?

Fortuna Mining (TSE:FVI) has had a rough three months with its share price down 13%. It is possible that the markets have ignored the company's differing financials and decided to lean-in to the negative sentiment. Fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes so it makes sense to study the company's financials. Specifically, we decided to study Fortuna Mining's ROE in this article.

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.

View our latest analysis for Fortuna Mining

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for return on equity is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Fortuna Mining is:

2.5% = US$37m ÷ US$1.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every CA$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated CA$0.03 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Fortuna Mining's Earnings Growth And 2.5% ROE

It is hard to argue that Fortuna Mining's ROE is much good in and of itself. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 9.0%, the company's ROE is quite dismal. For this reason, Fortuna Mining's five year net income decline of 38% is not surprising given its lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

However, when we compared Fortuna Mining's growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 24% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Fortuna Mining's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Fortuna Mining Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Because Fortuna Mining doesn't pay any regular dividends, we infer that it is retaining all of its profits, which is rather perplexing when you consider the fact that there is no earnings growth to show for it. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by Fortuna Mining can be open to many interpretations. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts 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.