Advantech Co., Ltd.'s (TWSE:2395) Stock Is Going Strong: Have Financials A Role To Play?

Advantech (TWSE:2395) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 19% over the last three months. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, 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 Advantech's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Advantech

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 Advantech is:

18% = NT$8.6b ÷ NT$49b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every NT$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated NT$0.18 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. 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.

Advantech's Earnings Growth And 18% ROE

At first glance, Advantech seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. Probably as a result of this, Advantech was able to see a decent growth of 8.8% over the last five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Advantech's reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 12% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about Advantech's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Advantech Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

The high three-year median payout ratio of 71% (or a retention ratio of 29%) for Advantech suggests that the company's growth wasn't really hampered despite it returning most of its income to its shareholders.

Moreover, Advantech is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 74% of its profits over the next three years. Still, forecasts suggest that Advantech's future ROE will rise to 23% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that Advantech has some positive attributes. 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. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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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.