Should Weakness in SDI Corporation's (TWSE:2351) 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 SDI's (TWSE:2351) recent performance, when its stock has declined 12% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. Particularly, we will be paying attention to SDI's ROE today.

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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

See our latest analysis for SDI

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity 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 SDI is:

11% = NT$781m ÷ NT$7.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every NT$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of NT$0.11.

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.

SDI's Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To start with, SDI's ROE looks acceptable. Even when compared to the industry average of 9.6% the company's ROE looks quite decent. Consequently, this likely laid the ground for the decent growth of 9.7% seen over the past five years by SDI.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that SDI's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 17% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

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. Is SDI fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is SDI Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

SDI has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 64%, meaning that it is left with only 36% 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, SDI 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. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 63%. Still, forecasts suggest that SDI's future ROE will rise to 14% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that SDI certainly does have some positive factors to consider. The company has grown its earnings moderately as previously discussed. Still, the high ROE could have been even more beneficial to investors had the company been reinvesting more of its profits. As highlighted earlier, the current reinvestment rate appears to be quite low. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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.