Yahoo Finance Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY)?
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) has had a rough three months with its share price down 5.2%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Occidental Petroleum's ROE today.
Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
See our latest analysis for Occidental Petroleum
How Is ROE Calculated?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Occidental Petroleum is:
45% = US$13b ÷ US$29b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.45 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For 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. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.
A Side By Side comparison of Occidental Petroleum's Earnings Growth And 45% ROE
First thing first, we like that Occidental Petroleum has an impressive ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 32% which is quite remarkable. Despite this, Occidental Petroleum's 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. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital
As a next step, we compared Occidental Petroleum's net income growth with the industry and discovered that the industry saw an average growth of 6.8% in the same period.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. 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 Occidental Petroleum is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is Occidental Petroleum Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Occidental Petroleum's low LTM (or last twelve month) payout ratio of 3.1%, (meaning the company retains97% of profits) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see higher growth than it has reported.
Moreover, Occidental Petroleum has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 18% over the next three years. Accordingly, the expected increase in the payout ratio explains the expected decline in the company's ROE to 18%, over the same period.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Occidental Petroleum certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE and and a high reinvestment rate. We believe that there might be some outside factors that could be having a negative impact on the business. In addition, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that the company's earnings are expected to continue to shrink. 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.
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