What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. Although, when we looked at Itron (NASDAQ:ITRI), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Itron, this is the formula:

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

0.064 = US$124m ÷ (US$2.5b - US$556m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Therefore, Itron has an ROCE of 6.4%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Electronic industry average of 12%.

View our latest analysis for Itron

In the above chart we have measured Itron's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

So How Is Itron's ROCE Trending?

Over the past five years, Itron's ROCE and capital employed have both remained mostly flat. 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 Itron in terms of ROCE and additional investments being made, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger.

What We Can Learn From Itron's ROCE

In summary, Itron isn't compounding its earnings but is generating stable returns on the same amount of capital employed. And with the stock having returned a mere 32% in the last five years to shareholders, you could argue that they're aware of these lackluster trends. Therefore, if you're looking for a multi-bagger, we'd propose looking at other options.

If you want to continue researching Itron, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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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.