Return Trends At Aplisens (WSE:APN) Aren't Appealing

There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. So, when we ran our eye over Aplisens' (WSE:APN) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Aplisens:

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

0.10 = zł19m ÷ (zł198m - zł11m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

So, Aplisens has an ROCE of 10%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty standard return but compared to the Electronic industry average it falls behind.

See our latest analysis for Aplisens

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Aplisens' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Aplisens, check out these free graphs here.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

While the returns on capital are good, they haven't moved much. The company has employed 30% more capital in the last five years, and the returns on that capital have remained stable at 10%. Since 10% 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.

In Conclusion...

The main thing to remember is that Aplisens has proven its ability to continually reinvest at respectable rates of return. However, over the last five years, the stock hasn't provided much growth to shareholders in the way of total returns. That's why we think it'd be worthwhile to look further into this stock given the fundamentals are appealing.

On a final note, we found 3 warning signs for Aplisens (1 shouldn't be ignored) you should be aware of.

While Aplisens may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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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.