What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could 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. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Having said that, while the ROCE is currently high for Sirius XM Holdings (NASDAQ:SIRI), we aren't jumping out of our chairs because returns are decreasing.

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

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Sirius XM Holdings:

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

0.24 = US$2.1b ÷ (US$11b - US$2.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

Therefore, Sirius XM Holdings has an ROCE of 24%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 10% earned by companies in a similar industry.

In the above chart we have measured Sirius XM Holdings' prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Sirius XM Holdings .

So How Is Sirius XM Holdings' ROCE Trending?

Things have been pretty stable at Sirius XM Holdings, with its capital employed and returns on that capital staying somewhat the same for the last five years. This tells us the company isn't reinvesting in itself, so it's plausible that it's past the growth phase. So while the current operations are delivering respectable returns, unless capital employed increases we'd be hard-pressed to believe it's a multi-bagger going forward. This probably explains why Sirius XM Holdings is paying out 38% of its income to shareholders in the form of dividends. Unless businesses have highly compelling growth opportunities, they'll typically return some money to shareholders.

The Bottom Line On Sirius XM Holdings' ROCE

While Sirius XM Holdings has impressive profitability from its capital, it isn't increasing that amount of capital. And investors appear hesitant that the trends will pick up because the stock has fallen 56% in the last five years. All in all, the inherent trends aren't typical of multi-baggers, so if that's what you're after, we think you might have more luck elsewhere.

Sirius XM Holdings does come with some risks though, we found 4 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those doesn't sit too well with us...

High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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.