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If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. Having said that, from a first glance at Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look.
What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?
Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. The formula for this calculation on Duke Energy is:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.047 = US$7.8b ÷ (US$184b - US$17b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).
Therefore, Duke Energy has an ROCE of 4.7%. On its own that's a low return on capital but it's in line with the industry's average returns of 4.8%.
Check out our latest analysis for Duke Energy
Above you can see how the current ROCE for Duke Energy compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Duke Energy for free.
What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us
There hasn't been much to report for Duke Energy's returns and its level of capital employed because both metrics have been steady for the past five years. It's not uncommon to see this when looking at a mature and stable business that isn't re-investing its earnings because it has likely passed that phase of the business cycle. So unless we see a substantial change at Duke Energy in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger. That being the case, it makes sense that Duke Energy has been paying out 65% of its earnings to its shareholders. Most shareholders probably know this and own the stock for its dividend.
What We Can Learn From Duke Energy's ROCE
In summary, Duke Energy isn't compounding its earnings but is generating stable returns on the same amount of capital employed. And investors may be recognizing these trends since the stock has only returned a total of 39% to shareholders over the last five years. As a result, if you're hunting for a multi-bagger, we think you'd have more luck elsewhere.