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Are Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:UCTT) Fundamentals Good Enough to Warrant Buying Given The Stock's Recent Weakness?

With its stock down 30% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Ultra Clean Holdings (NASDAQ:UCTT). However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Ultra Clean Holdings' 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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for Ultra Clean Holdings

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Ultra Clean Holdings is:

14% = US$132m ÷ US$926m (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2022).

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 $0.14.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. 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.

Ultra Clean Holdings' Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

At first glance, Ultra Clean Holdings seems to have a decent ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 19%, we aren't very excited. However, the moderate 17% net income growth seen by Ultra Clean Holdings over the past five years is definitely a positive. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place. Bear in mind, the company does have a respectable level of ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. So this also does lend some color to the fairly high earnings growth seen by the company.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Ultra Clean Holdings' reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 24% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Ultra Clean Holdings is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Ultra Clean Holdings Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Given that Ultra Clean Holdings doesn't pay any dividend to its shareholders, we infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Ultra Clean Holdings has some positive aspects to its business. Particularly, its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely achieved due to the company reinvesting most of its earnings at a decent rate of return, to grow its business. That being so, the latest analyst forecasts show that the company will continue to see an expansion in its earnings. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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.