Valuetronics Holdings' (SGX:BN2) stock up by 8.7% over the past three months. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to investigate if the company's decent financials had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Valuetronics Holdings' ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for Valuetronics Holdings

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 Valuetronics Holdings is:

11% = HK$160m ÷ HK$1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each SGD1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made SGD0.11 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. 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

A Side By Side comparison of Valuetronics Holdings' Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To start with, Valuetronics Holdings' ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 12%. As you might expect, the 9.4% net income decline reported by Valuetronics Holdings is a bit of a surprise. So, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. Such as, the company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.

So, as a next step, we compared Valuetronics Holdings' performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 12% over the last few years.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is Valuetronics Holdings fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.