Should Weakness in Jindal Saw Limited's (NSE:JINDALSAW) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?

It is hard to get excited after looking at Jindal Saw's (NSE:JINDALSAW) recent performance, when its stock has declined 6.6% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Jindal Saw's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

See our latest analysis for Jindal Saw

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Jindal Saw is:

17% = ₹14b ÷ ₹83b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every ₹1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated ₹0.17 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. 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 Jindal Saw's Earnings Growth And 17% ROE

To begin with, Jindal Saw seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 13% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. However, for some reason, the higher returns aren't reflected in Jindal Saw's meagre five year net income growth average of 3.6%. This is interesting as the high returns should mean that the company has the ability to generate high growth but for some reason, it hasn't been able to do so. A few likely reasons why this could happen is that the company could have a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Jindal Saw's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 28% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Jindal Saw is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Jindal Saw Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Jindal Saw has a low three-year median payout ratio of 15% (meaning, the company keeps the remaining 85% of profits) which means that the company is retaining more of its earnings. However, the low earnings growth number doesn't reflect this fact. Therefore, there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.

Additionally, Jindal Saw has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 9.3% over the next three years. Regardless, the ROE is not expected to change much for the company despite the lower expected payout ratio.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Jindal Saw has some positive aspects to its business. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. 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. 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.