Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ASO) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?

Academy Sports and Outdoors (NASDAQ:ASO) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 12% over the last three months. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Academy Sports and Outdoors' ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

See our latest analysis for Academy Sports and Outdoors

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE 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 Academy Sports and Outdoors is:

23% = US$453m ÷ US$2.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to November 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.23 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Academy Sports and Outdoors' Earnings Growth And 23% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that Academy Sports and Outdoors has a significantly high ROE. Further, even comparing with the industry average if 19%, the company's ROE is quite respectable. Therefore, it looks like the high ROE is what probably supported Academy Sports and Outdoors' modest 15% growth over the past five years.

We then performed a comparison between Academy Sports and Outdoors' net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 16% in the same 5-year period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. Has the market priced in the future outlook for ASO? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Is Academy Sports and Outdoors Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

In Academy Sports and Outdoors' case, its respectable earnings growth can probably be explained by its low three-year median payout ratio of 4.8% (or a retention ratio of 95%), which suggests that the company is investing most of its profits to grow its business.

Moreover, Academy Sports and Outdoors is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of three years of paying a dividend. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 11% over the next three years. Therefore, the expected rise in the payout ratio explains why the company's ROE is expected to decline to 18% over the same period.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Academy Sports and Outdoors' performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. 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. 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.