Yahoo Finance Is Weakness In Cars.com Inc. (NYSE:CARS) Stock A Sign That The Market Could be Wrong Given Its Strong Financial Prospects?
Cars.com (NYSE:CARS) has had a rough three months with its share price down 8.2%. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. In this article, we decided to focus on Cars.com'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 short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.
See our latest analysis for Cars.com
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 Cars.com is:
24% = US$118m ÷ US$492m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.24 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For 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.
Cars.com's Earnings Growth And 24% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that Cars.com has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 6.8% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. As a result, Cars.com's exceptional 47% net income growth seen over the past five years, doesn't come as a surprise.
As a next step, we compared Cars.com's net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 4.0%.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. 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 Cars.com is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is Cars.com Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
Cars.com doesn't pay any regular dividends currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the high earnings growth number that we discussed above.
Conclusion
Overall, we are quite pleased with Cars.com's performance. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. With that said, on studying the latest analyst forecasts, we found that while the company has seen growth in its past earnings, analysts expect its future earnings to shrink. 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.
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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.
