Is Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EXPD) Latest Stock Performance Being Led By Its Strong Fundamentals?

Most readers would already know that Expeditors International of Washington's (NASDAQ:EXPD) stock increased by 4.6% 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. Specifically, we decided to study Expeditors International of Washington's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

View our latest analysis for Expeditors International of Washington

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Expeditors International of Washington is:

26% = US$698m ÷ US$2.7b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2020).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.26 in profit.

Why Is ROE Important For 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. 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 Expeditors International of Washington's Earnings Growth And 26% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that Expeditors International of Washington has a significantly high ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 9.6% the company's ROE is quite impressive. Probably as a result of this, Expeditors International of Washington was able to see a decent net income growth of 9.7% over the last five years.

As a next step, we compared Expeditors International of Washington'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 10% in the same period.

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). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about Expeditors International of Washington's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Expeditors International of Washington Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Expeditors International of Washington has a three-year median payout ratio of 27%, which implies that it retains the remaining 73% of its profits. This suggests that its dividend is well covered, and given the decent growth seen by the company, it looks like management is reinvesting its earnings efficiently.

Additionally, Expeditors International of Washington 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. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 26% of its profits over the next three years. Therefore, the company's future ROE is also not expected to change by much with analysts predicting an ROE of 28%.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Expeditors International of Washington'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, according to the latest industry analyst forecasts, the company's earnings are expected to shrink in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page 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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