What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. So, when we ran our eye over Goodwin's (LON:GDWN) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Goodwin:

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

0.11 = UK£18m ÷ (UK£209m - UK£41m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to October 2021).

Therefore, Goodwin has an ROCE of 11%. That's a pretty standard return and it's in line with the industry average of 11%.

See our latest analysis for Goodwin

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Goodwin, check out these free graphs here.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. The company has employed 49% more capital in the last five years, and the returns on that capital have remained stable at 11%. 11% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that Goodwin has consistently earned this amount. Over long periods of time, returns like these might not be too exciting, but with consistency they can pay off in terms of share price returns.

One more thing to note, even though ROCE has remained relatively flat over the last five years, the reduction in current liabilities to 19% of total assets, is good to see from a business owner's perspective. This can eliminate some of the risks inherent in the operations because the business has less outstanding obligations to their suppliers and or short-term creditors than they did previously.

Our Take On Goodwin's ROCE

To sum it up, Goodwin has simply been reinvesting capital steadily, at those decent rates of return. On top of that, the stock has rewarded shareholders with a remarkable 136% return to those who've held over the last five years. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we still believe the stock deserves further research.