Is Perficient, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:PRFT) Recent Performance Tethered To Its Attractive Financial Prospects?

Perficient's (NASDAQ:PRFT) stock is up by 4.7% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term financial health, we decided to study the company’s fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. In this article, we decided to focus on Perficient's ROE.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

See our latest analysis for Perficient

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Perficient is:

14% = US$52m ÷ US$365m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.14 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Perficient's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

To start with, Perficient's ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 17%. This probably goes some way in explaining Perficient's significant 22% net income growth over the past five years amongst other factors. However, there could also be other drivers behind this growth. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.

As a next step, we compared Perficient's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 14%.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is PRFT worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether PRFT is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Perficient Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Given that Perficient doesn't pay any dividend to its shareholders, we infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Perficient'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. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. 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.