Yahoo Finance Should Weakness in Cipher Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s (TSE:CPH) Stock Be Seen As A Sign That Market Will Correct The Share Price Given Decent Financials?
With its stock down 3.8% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Cipher Pharmaceuticals (TSE:CPH). 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. Specifically, we decided to study Cipher Pharmaceuticals' ROE in this article.
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.
View our latest analysis for Cipher Pharmaceuticals
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
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 Cipher Pharmaceuticals is:
21% = US$8.6m ÷ US$40m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every CA$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of CA$0.21.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
Thus far, we have learned that ROE measures how efficiently a company is generating its profits. 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.
Cipher Pharmaceuticals' Earnings Growth And 21% ROE
To begin with, Cipher Pharmaceuticals seems to have a respectable ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 11%. Despite this, Cipher Pharmaceuticals' five year net income growth was quite flat over the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has allocated capital poorly, for instance.
We then compared Cipher Pharmaceuticals' net income growth with the industry and found that the average industry growth rate was 13% in the same period.
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). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you're wondering about Cipher Pharmaceuticals''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.
Is Cipher Pharmaceuticals Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Cipher Pharmaceuticals doesn't pay any dividend, meaning that potentially all of its profits are being reinvested in the business. However, this doesn't explain why the company hasn't seen any growth. So there could be some other explanations in that regard. For instance, the company's business may be deteriorating.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Cipher Pharmaceuticals certainly does have some positive factors to consider. 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. That being so, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that the analysts are expecting to see a huge improvement in the company's earnings growth rate. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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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.
