Yahoo Finance Is WELL Health Technologies Corp.'s (TSE:WELL) Recent Price Movement Underpinned By Its Weak Fundamentals?
With its stock down 17% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard WELL Health Technologies (TSE:WELL). We, however decided to study the company's financials to determine if they have got anything to do with the price decline. Long-term fundamentals are usually what drive market outcomes, so it's worth paying close attention. In this article, we decided to focus on WELL Health Technologies' ROE.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
See our latest analysis for WELL Health Technologies
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 WELL Health Technologies is:
2.0% = CA$17m ÷ CA$846m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).
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$0.02.
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. 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.
WELL Health Technologies' Earnings Growth And 2.0% ROE
It is hard to argue that WELL Health Technologies' ROE is much good in and of itself. Not just that, even compared to the industry average of 9.0%, the company's ROE is entirely unremarkable. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 5.2% seen by WELL Health Technologies was possibly a result of it having a lower ROE. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. For example, the business has allocated capital poorly, or that the company has a very high payout ratio.
That being said, we compared WELL Health Technologies' performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 0.3% in the same 5-year period.
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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is WELL fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is WELL Health Technologies Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
WELL Health Technologies doesn't pay any regular dividends, meaning that the company is keeping all of its profits, which makes us wonder why it is retaining its earnings if it can't use them to grow its business. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.
Conclusion
On the whole, we feel that the performance shown by WELL Health Technologies can be open to many interpretations. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the earnings growth. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. 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.
