It is hard to get excited after looking at Cactus' (NYSE:WHD) recent performance, when its stock has declined 17% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company's financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. In this article, we decided to focus on Cactus' ROE.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for Cactus

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 Cactus is:

16% = US$100m ÷ US$644m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.16 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. 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. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

Cactus' Earnings Growth And 16% ROE

To start with, Cactus' ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 8.2%. Despite this, Cactus' five year net income growth was quite flat over the past five years. We reckon that there could be some other factors at play here that's limiting 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.

Next, we compared Cactus' performance against the industry and found that the industry shrunk its earnings at 4.6% in the same period, which suggests that the company's earnings have been shrinking at a slower rate than its industry, This does appease the negative sentiment around the company to a certain extent.

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. 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 Cactus is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Cactus Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Despite having a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 40% (meaning the company retains60% of profits) in the last three-year period, Cactus' earnings growth was more or les flat. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

In addition, Cactus has been paying dividends over a period of three years suggesting that keeping up dividend payments is way more important to the management even if it comes at the cost of business growth. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 18% over the next three years. Accordingly, the expected drop in the payout ratio explains the expected increase in the company's ROE to 24%, over the same period.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that Cactus has some positive attributes. 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. 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 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.