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General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) has had a rough three months with its share price down 13%. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to General Dynamics' ROE today.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
View our latest analysis for General Dynamics
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
ROE 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 General Dynamics is:
16% = US$3.6b ÷ US$23b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.16 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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. 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.
General Dynamics' Earnings Growth And 16% ROE
To begin with, General Dynamics seems to have a respectable ROE. On comparing with the average industry ROE of 12% the company's ROE looks pretty remarkable. However, we are curious as to how the high returns still resulted in flat growth for General Dynamics in the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. Such as, the company pays out a huge portion of its earnings as dividends, or is faced with competitive pressures.
As a next step, we compared General Dynamics' net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 8.9% in the same period.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is GD fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.