FSP Technology Inc. (TPE:3015) Is Going Strong But Fundamentals Appear To Be Mixed : Is There A Clear Direction For The Stock?

Most readers would already be aware that FSP Technology's (TPE:3015) stock increased significantly by 26% over the past three months. But the company's key financial indicators appear to be differing across the board and that makes us question whether or not the company's current share price momentum can be maintained. Specifically, we decided to study FSP Technology's ROE in this article.

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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for FSP Technology

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

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 FSP Technology is:

5.6% = NT$602m ÷ NT$11b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each NT$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made NT$0.06 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. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.

FSP Technology's Earnings Growth And 5.6% ROE

When you first look at it, FSP Technology's ROE doesn't look that attractive. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 7.9%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. For this reason, FSP Technology's five year net income decline of 11% is not surprising given its lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. Such as - low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

So, as a next step, we compared FSP Technology's 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 3.7% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about FSP Technology's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is FSP Technology Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

FSP Technology doesn't pay any dividend, meaning that the company is keeping all of its profits, which makes us wonder why it is retaining its earnings if it can't use them to grow its business. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.

Conclusion

Overall, we have mixed feelings about FSP Technology. Even though it appears to be retaining most of its profits, given the low ROE, investors may not be benefitting from all that reinvestment after all. The low earnings growth suggests our theory correct. Wrapping up, we would proceed with caution with this company and one way of doing that would be to look at the risk profile of the business. To know the 2 risks we have identified for FSP Technology visit our risks dashboard for free.

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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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