Canadian National Railway (TSE:CNR) Hasn't Managed To Accelerate Its Returns

If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. Firstly, we'll want to see a proven return on capital employed (ROCE) that is increasing, and secondly, an expanding base of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So, when we ran our eye over Canadian National Railway's (TSE:CNR) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Canadian National Railway is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.13 = CA$5.6b ÷ (CA$45b - CA$2.8b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

Thus, Canadian National Railway has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Transportation industry average of 9.9% it's much better.

Check out our latest analysis for Canadian National Railway

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Canadian National Railway compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Canadian National Railway here for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

While the current returns on capital are decent, they haven't changed much. The company has consistently earned 13% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 27% in that time. Since 13% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.

The Bottom Line

In the end, Canadian National Railway has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. And since the stock has risen strongly over the last five years, it appears the market might expect this trend to continue. So even though the stock might be more "expensive" than it was before, we think the strong fundamentals warrant this stock for further research.

If you want to continue researching Canadian National Railway, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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