Amsterdam Commodities N.V.'s (AMS:ACOMO) Stock Has Shown A Decent Performance: Have Financials A Role To Play?

Amsterdam Commodities' (AMS:ACOMO) stock is up by 2.4% over the past month. As most would know, long-term fundamentals have a strong correlation with market price movements, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. In this article, we decided to focus on Amsterdam Commodities' ROE.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Amsterdam Commodities

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Amsterdam Commodities is:

9.3% = €27m ÷ €289m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

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 €0.09 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. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

Amsterdam Commodities' Earnings Growth And 9.3% ROE

At first glance, Amsterdam Commodities seems to have a decent ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 10.0% the company's ROE looks quite decent. For this reason, Amsterdam Commodities' five year net income decline of 2.1% raises the question as to why the decent ROE didn't translate into growth. So, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.

So, as a next step, we compared Amsterdam Commodities' performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 7.2% in the same 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 Amsterdam Commodities''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Amsterdam Commodities Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

While the company did payout a portion of its dividend in the past, it currently doesn't pay a dividend. This implies that potentially all of its profits are being reinvested in the business.

Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 40% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Amsterdam Commodities' payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 13%, over the same period.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Amsterdam Commodities certainly does have some positive factors to consider. However, while the company does have a high ROE, its earnings growth number is quite disappointing. This can be blamed on the fact that it reinvests only a small portion of its profits and pays out the rest as dividends. Up till now, we've only made a short study of the company's growth data. You can do your own research on Amsterdam Commodities and see how it has performed in the past by looking at this FREE detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flows.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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