There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. 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. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. With that in mind, the ROCE of AGCO (NYSE:AGCO) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

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. The formula for this calculation on AGCO is:

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

0.25 = US$1.8b ÷ (US$11b - US$4.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).

Therefore, AGCO has an ROCE of 25%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Machinery industry average of 12%.

Check out our latest analysis for AGCO

Above you can see how the current ROCE for AGCO compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering AGCO here for free.

What Can We Tell From AGCO's ROCE Trend?

We like the trends that we're seeing from AGCO. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 25%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 38%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at AGCO thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

The Bottom Line On AGCO's ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that AGCO can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. Since the stock has returned a staggering 157% to shareholders over the last five years, it looks like investors are recognizing these changes. In light of that, we think it's worth looking further into this stock because if AGCO can keep these trends up, it could have a bright future ahead.

One more thing, we've spotted 1 warning sign facing AGCO that you might find interesting.

If you want to search for more stocks that have been earning high returns, check out this free list of stocks with solid balance sheets that are also earning high 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.