Comfort Systems USA's (NYSE:FIX) stock up by 4.7% over the past month. Since the market usually pay for a company's long-term financial health, we decided to study the company's fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Comfort Systems USA's ROE today.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors' money. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

View our latest analysis for Comfort Systems USA

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Comfort Systems USA is:

24% = US$287m ÷ US$1.2b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.24 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Comfort Systems USA's Earnings Growth And 24% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that Comfort Systems USA has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 11% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. As a result, Comfort Systems USA's exceptional 21% net income growth seen over the past five years, doesn't come as a surprise.

As a next step, we compared Comfort Systems USA's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 19% in the same period.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. If you're wondering about Comfort Systems USA's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Comfort Systems USA Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Comfort Systems USA's three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 10.0%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 90% of its profits. So it seems like the management is reinvesting profits heavily to grow its business and this reflects in its earnings growth number.

Additionally, Comfort Systems USA has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 7.0% over the next three years. Despite the lower expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that Comfort Systems USA's performance has been quite good. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business, and at a high rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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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.