Should Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR) Focus On Improving This Fundamental Metric?
Should Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR) Focus On Improving This Fundamental Metric?
While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. We'll use ROE to examine Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR), by way of a worked example.
尽管一些投资者已经精通财务指标（帽子提示），但本文适用于那些想了解股本回报率（ROE）及其重要性的人。我们将使用投资回报率来考察波特兰通用电气公司（纽约证券交易所代码：POR），举一个很好的例子。
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
股本回报率或投资回报率是用于评估公司管理层利用公司资本效率的关键衡量标准。简而言之，投资回报率显示了每美元从其股东投资中产生的利润。
View our latest analysis for Portland General Electric
查看我们对波特兰通用电气的最新分析
How Is ROE Calculated?
投资回报率是如何计算的？
ROE can be calculated by using the formula:
ROE 可以通过使用以下公式计算：
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
股本回报率 = 净利润（来自持续经营）÷ 股东权益
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Portland General Electric is:
因此，根据上述公式，波特兰通用电气的投资回报率为：
6.4% = US$211m ÷ US$3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023).
6.4% = 2.11亿美元 ÷ 33亿美元（基于截至2023年9月的过去十二个月）。
The 'return' is the yearly profit. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.06 in profit.
“回报” 是每年的利润。这意味着，每获得价值1美元的股东权益，公司就会产生0.06美元的利润。
Does Portland General Electric Have A Good Return On Equity?
波特兰通用电气有良好的股本回报率吗？
One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. If you look at the image below, you can see Portland General Electric has a lower ROE than the average (8.3%) in the Electric Utilities industry classification.
确定公司股本回报率是否不错的一种简单方法是将其与该行业的平均水平进行比较。重要的是，这远非一个完美的衡量标准，因为各公司在相同的行业分类中差异很大。如果你看下图，你会发现波特兰通用电气的投资回报率低于电力公用事业行业分类中的平均水平（8.3％）。
That certainly isn't ideal. However, a low ROE is not always bad. If the company's debt levels are moderate to low, then there's still a chance that returns can be improved via the use of financial leverage. A high debt company having a low ROE is a different story altogether and a risky investment in our books. To know the 3 risks we have identified for Portland General Electric visit our risks dashboard for free.
这当然不理想。但是，低投资回报率并不总是坏事。如果公司的债务水平处于中等至低水平，那么仍然有可能通过使用财务杠杆来提高回报。投资回报率低的高负债公司完全是另一回事，对我们的账面来说也是一项风险投资。要了解我们为波特兰通用电气确定的三种风险，请免费访问我们的风险仪表板。
The Importance Of Debt To Return On Equity
债务对股本回报率的重要性
Most companies need money -- from somewhere -- to grow their profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders' equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking.
大多数公司需要来自某个地方的资金来增加利润。这些现金可以来自留存收益、发行新股（股权）或债务。对于第一和第二种选择，投资回报率将反映现金用于增长的这种用途。在后一种情况下，增长所需的债务将提高回报，但不会影响股东权益。因此，使用债务可以提高投资回报率，尽管可以隐喻地说，暴风雨天气会带来额外的风险。
Portland General Electric's Debt And Its 6.4% ROE
波特兰通用电气的债务及其6.4％的投资回报率
Portland General Electric clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.15. The combination of a rather low ROE and significant use of debt is not particularly appealing. Investors should think carefully about how a company might perform if it was unable to borrow so easily, because credit markets do change over time.
波特兰通用电气显然使用大量债务来提高回报，因为其负债权益比率为1.15。相当低的投资回报率和大量使用债务相结合并不是特别有吸引力。投资者应该仔细考虑如果一家公司无法如此轻易地借款，其表现会如何，因为信贷市场确实会随着时间的推移而发生变化。
Summary
摘要
Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, I'd generally prefer the one with higher ROE.
股本回报率对于比较不同业务的质量很有用。一家能够在没有债务的情况下实现高股本回报率的公司可以被视为高质量的企业。如果两家公司的债权与股本水平大致相同，而一家的投资回报率更高，我通常更喜欢投资回报率更高的公司。
But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
但是，当企业质量很高时，市场通常会以反映这一点的价格出价。重要的是要考虑其他因素，例如未来的利润增长以及未来需要多少投资。因此，我认为可能值得查看这份关于公司分析师预测的免费报告。
But note: Portland General Electric may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.
但请注意：波特兰通用电气可能不是最好的买入股票。因此，来看看这份投资回报率高、负债率低的有趣公司的免费清单。
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Simply Wall St 的这篇文章本质上是笼统的。我们仅使用公正的方法提供基于历史数据和分析师预测的评论，我们的文章并非旨在提供财务建议。它不构成买入或卖出任何股票的建议，也没有考虑到您的目标或财务状况。我们的目标是为您提供由基本数据驱动的长期重点分析。请注意，我们的分析可能不会考虑最新的价格敏感型公司公告或定性材料。华尔街只是没有持有上述任何股票的头寸。