Why The 20% Return On Capital At M.D.C. Holdings (NYSE:MDC) Should Have Your Attention

If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So when we looked at the ROCE trend of M.D.C. Holdings (NYSE:MDC) we really liked what we saw.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. The formula for this calculation on M.D.C. Holdings is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.20 = US$836m ÷ (US$5.1b - US$827m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).

Therefore, M.D.C. Holdings has an ROCE of 20%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Consumer Durables industry average of 16%.

View our latest analysis for M.D.C. Holdings

In the above chart we have measured M.D.C. Holdings' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for M.D.C. Holdings.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

M.D.C. Holdings is displaying some positive trends. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 20%. Basically the business is earning more per dollar of capital invested and in addition to that, 93% more capital is being employed now too. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at M.D.C. Holdings thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

The Bottom Line

In summary, it's great to see that M.D.C. Holdings can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. Since the stock has returned a solid 60% to shareholders over the last five years, it's fair to say investors are beginning to recognize these changes. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if M.D.C. Holdings can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.

If you'd like to know more about M.D.C. Holdings, we've spotted 4 warning signs, and 1 of them is a bit unpleasant.

If you want to search for more stocks that have been earning high returns, check out this free list of stocks with solid balance sheets that are also earning high returns on equity.

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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.