Is IDEX Corporation's (NYSE:IEX) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

IDEX's (NYSE:IEX) stock is up by 2.8% over the past month. Given its impressive performance, we decided to study the company's key financial indicators as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study IDEX's ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

View our latest analysis for IDEX

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 IDEX is:

15% = US$378m ÷ US$2.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.15 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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 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.

IDEX's Earnings Growth And 15% ROE

To start with, IDEX's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 11%. This probably laid the ground for IDEX's moderate 9.1% net income growth seen over the past five years.

As a next step, we compared IDEX's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 7.9% in the same period.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. What is IEX worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether IEX is currently mispriced by the market.

Is IDEX Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

With a three-year median payout ratio of 33% (implying that the company retains 67% of its profits), it seems that IDEX is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees respectable amount growth in its earnings and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Additionally, IDEX 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 34%. Regardless, the future ROE for IDEX is predicted to rise to 20% despite there being not much change expected in its payout ratio.

Summary

Overall, we are quite pleased with IDEX's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. 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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