Stock Analysis

Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX) Has More To Do To Multiply In Value Going Forward

NasdaqGS:DOX
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Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. That's why when we briefly looked at Amdocs' (NASDAQ:DOX) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Amdocs:

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

0.13 = US$647m ÷ (US$6.5b - US$1.3b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

Therefore, Amdocs has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the IT industry average of 12%.

Our analysis indicates that DOX is potentially undervalued!

roce
NasdaqGS:DOX Return on Capital Employed October 12th 2022

In the above chart we have measured Amdocs' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Amdocs here for free.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Amdocs Tell Us?

While the returns on capital are good, they haven't moved much. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 13% and the business has deployed 26% more capital into its operations. Since 13% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

In Conclusion...

The main thing to remember is that Amdocs has proven its ability to continually reinvest at respectable rates of return. In light of this, the stock has only gained 33% over the last five years for shareholders who have owned the stock in this period. That's why it could be worth your time looking into this stock further to discover if it has more traits of a multi-bagger.

Amdocs could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation on our platform quite valuable.

While Amdocs may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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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.