With its stock down 30% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd (SHSE:688228). It seems that the market might have completely ignored the positive aspects of the company's fundamentals and decided to weigh-in more on the negative aspects. Fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes so it makes sense to study the company's financials. Particularly, we will be paying attention to UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's ROE today.
ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
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 UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd is:
4.4% = CN¥62m ÷ CN¥1.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every CN¥1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of CN¥0.04.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.
UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's Earnings Growth And 4.4% ROE
It is quite clear that UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's ROE is rather low. An industry comparison shows that the company's ROE is not much different from the industry average of 5.2% either. Given the circumstances, the significant decline in net income by 2.5% seen by UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd over the last five years is not surprising.
So, as a next step, we compared UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 3.7% over the last few years.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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. If you're wondering about UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 30% (where it is retaining 70% of its profits), UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.
Moreover, UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd has been paying dividends for three years, which is a considerable amount of time, suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer consistent dividends even though earnings have been shrinking.
Conclusion
In total, we're a bit ambivalent about UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd's performance. While the company does have a high rate of profit retention, its low rate of return is probably hampering its earnings growth. Wrapping up, we would proceed with caution with this company and one way of doing that would be to look at the risk profile of the business. Our risks dashboard would have the 3 risks we have identified for UCAP Cloud Information TechnologyLtd.
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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.