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The market rallied behind Senior plc's (LON:SNR) stock, leading do a rise in the share price after its recent weak earnings report. Sometimes, shareholders are willing to ignore soft numbers with the hope that they will improve, but our analysis suggests this is unlikely for Senior.
Check out our latest analysis for Senior
The Impact Of Unusual Items On Profit
To properly understand Senior's profit results, we need to consider the UK£3.6m gain attributed to unusual items. While it's always nice to have higher profit, a large contribution from unusual items sometimes dampens our enthusiasm. We ran the numbers on most publicly listed companies worldwide, and it's very common for unusual items to be once-off in nature. Which is hardly surprising, given the name. Assuming those unusual items don't show up again in the current year, we'd thus expect profit to be weaker next year (in the absence of business growth, that is).
That might leave you wondering what analysts are forecasting in terms of future profitability. Luckily, you can click here to see an interactive graph depicting future profitability, based on their estimates.
Our Take On Senior's Profit Performance
We'd posit that Senior's statutory earnings aren't a clean read on ongoing productivity, due to the large unusual item. Therefore, it seems possible to us that Senior's true underlying earnings power is actually less than its statutory profit. But at least holders can take some solace from the 7.4% per annum growth in EPS for the last three. The goal of this article has been to assess how well we can rely on the statutory earnings to reflect the company's potential, but there is plenty more to consider. Obviously, we love to consider the historical data to inform our opinion of a company. But it can be really valuable to consider what other analysts are forecasting. At Simply Wall St, we have analyst estimates which you can view by clicking here.
Today we've zoomed in on a single data point to better understand the nature of Senior's profit. But there are plenty of other ways to inform your opinion of a company. Some people consider a high return on equity to be a good sign of a quality business. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks with high insider ownership.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.