If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. 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. In light of that, when we looked at Sylvania Platinum (LON:SLP) and its ROCE trend, we weren't exactly thrilled.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

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 Sylvania Platinum:

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

0.09 = US$22m ÷ (US$261m - US$14m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

Therefore, Sylvania Platinum has an ROCE of 9.0%. On its own that's a low return on capital but it's in line with the industry's average returns of 8.8%.

Check out our latest analysis for Sylvania Platinum

In the above chart we have measured Sylvania Platinum's 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 Sylvania Platinum for free.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Sylvania Platinum Tell Us?

On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Sylvania Platinum doesn't inspire confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 13% over the last five years. And considering revenue has dropped while employing more capital, we'd be cautious. This could mean that the business is losing its competitive advantage or market share, because while more money is being put into ventures, it's actually producing a lower return - "less bang for their buck" per se.

In Conclusion...

In summary, we're somewhat concerned by Sylvania Platinum's diminishing returns on increasing amounts of capital. Since the stock has skyrocketed 190% over the last five years, it looks like investors have high expectations of the stock. In any case, the current underlying trends don't bode well for long term performance so unless they reverse, we'd start looking elsewhere.

Sylvania Platinum does come with some risks though, we found 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those makes us a bit uncomfortable...