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Most readers would already be aware that Wheaton Precious Metals' (TSE:WPM) stock increased significantly by 15% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Wheaton Precious Metals' ROE today.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
Check out our latest analysis for Wheaton Precious Metals
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Wheaton Precious Metals is:
12% = US$795m ÷ US$6.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each CA$1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made CA$0.12 in profit.
What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.
Wheaton Precious Metals' Earnings Growth And 12% ROE
To start with, Wheaton Precious Metals' ROE looks acceptable. And on comparing with the industry, we found that the the average industry ROE is similar at 12%. Consequently, this likely laid the ground for the impressive net income growth of 36% seen over the past five years by Wheaton Precious Metals. We believe that there might also be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio.
We then performed a comparison between Wheaton Precious Metals' net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 32% in the same period.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Wheaton Precious Metals fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.