Yahoo Finance Westlake Corporation's (NYSE:WLK) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?
Westlake (NYSE:WLK) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 20% over the last three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. In this article, we decided to focus on Westlake's ROE.
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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
Check out our latest analysis for Westlake
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
Return on equity 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 Westlake is:
28% = US$2.6b ÷ US$9.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.28 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of Westlake's Earnings Growth And 28% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that Westlake has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 16% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. This probably laid the groundwork for Westlake's moderate 11% net income growth seen over the past five years.
We then compared Westlake's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 7.8% in the same period.
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. 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 Westlake is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is Westlake Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Westlake has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 27% (or a retention ratio of 73%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.
Moreover, Westlake is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 7.4% over the next three years. However, Westlake's future ROE is expected to decline to 18% despite the expected decline in its payout ratio. We infer that there could be other factors that could be steering the foreseen decline in the company's ROE.
Summary
On the whole, we feel that Westlake's performance has been quite good. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable growth in its earnings. That being so, according to the latest industry analyst forecasts, the company's earnings are expected to shrink in the future. 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.
