RGT Berhad's (KLSE:RGTBHD) stock up by 4.2% over the past month. As most would know, long-term fundamentals have a strong correlation with market price movements, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. Particularly, we will be paying attention to RGT Berhad's ROE today.
ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
See our latest analysis for RGT Berhad
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
Return on equity 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 RGT Berhad is:
1.6% = RM2.5m ÷ RM160m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each MYR1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made MYR0.02 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.
A Side By Side comparison of RGT Berhad's Earnings Growth And 1.6% ROE
It is hard to argue that RGT Berhad's ROE is much good in and of itself. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 6.4%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. Although, we can see that RGT Berhad saw a modest net income growth of 19% over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. 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.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that RGT Berhad's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 13% in the same period, which is great to see.
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). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if RGT Berhad is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.