RATIONAL Aktiengesellschaft's (ETR:RAA) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?

RATIONAL's (ETR:RAA) stock is up by a considerable 5.5% over the past month. 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. In this article, we decided to focus on RATIONAL's ROE.

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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for RATIONAL

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 RATIONAL is:

31% = €236m ÷ €765m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each €1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made €0.31 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. 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.

RATIONAL's Earnings Growth And 31% ROE

First thing first, we like that RATIONAL has an impressive ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 10% the company's ROE is quite impressive. This likely paved the way for the modest 15% net income growth seen by RATIONAL over the past five years.

We then performed a comparison between RATIONAL's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 15% in the same 5-year period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about RATIONAL's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is RATIONAL Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

RATIONAL 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.

Additionally, RATIONAL has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 69% of its profits over the next three years. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that RATIONAL's future ROE will be 28% which is again, similar to the current ROE.

Summary

Overall, we are quite pleased with RATIONAL's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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.

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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.