Yahoo Finance Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TJX)?
With its stock down 7.4% over the past month, it is easy to disregard TJX Companies (NYSE:TJX). But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. Particularly, we will be paying attention to TJX Companies' 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 simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
View our latest analysis for TJX Companies
How Is ROE Calculated?
ROE can be calculated by using the formula:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for TJX Companies is:
55% = US$3.5b ÷ US$6.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to January 2023).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.55.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.
TJX Companies' Earnings Growth And 55% ROE
First thing first, we like that TJX Companies has an impressive ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 29% which is quite remarkable. Despite this, TJX Companies' five year net income growth was quite flat over the past five years. We reckon that there could be some other factors at play here that's limiting the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that TJX Companies' reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 29% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is TJX worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TJX is currently mispriced by the market.
Is TJX Companies Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
In spite of a normal three-year median payout ratio of 40% (or a retention ratio of 60%), TJX Companies hasn't seen much growth in its earnings. Therefore, there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.
In addition, TJX Companies has been paying dividends over a period of at least ten years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 38% of its profits over the next three years. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that TJX Companies' future ROE will be 64% which is again, similar to the current ROE.
Conclusion
In total, it does look like TJX Companies has some positive aspects to its business. However, given the high ROE and high profit retention, we would expect the company to be delivering strong earnings growth, but that isn't the case here. This suggests that there might be some external threat to the business, that's hampering its growth. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
