Are Encore Wire Corporation's (NASDAQ:WIRE) Fundamentals Good Enough to Warrant Buying Given The Stock's Recent Weakness?

With its stock down 8.5% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Encore Wire (NASDAQ:WIRE). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Encore Wire'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.

View our latest analysis for Encore Wire

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 Encore Wire is:

7.7% = US$63m ÷ US$814m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.08 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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 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.

Encore Wire's Earnings Growth And 7.7% ROE

When you first look at it, Encore Wire's ROE doesn't look that attractive. A quick further study shows that the company's ROE doesn't compare favorably to the industry average of 11% either. Encore Wire was still able to see a decent net income growth of 12% over the past five years. So, the growth in the company's earnings could probably have been caused by other variables. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Encore Wire's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 5.0% in the same period, which is great to see.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Encore Wire is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Encore Wire Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

In Encore Wire's case, its respectable earnings growth can probably be explained by its low three-year median payout ratio of 2.4% (or a retention ratio of 98%), which suggests that the company is investing most of its profits to grow its business.

Moreover, Encore Wire 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.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that Encore Wire certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Despite its low rate of return, the fact that the company reinvests a very high portion of its profits into its business, no doubt contributed to its high earnings growth. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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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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