Insteel Industries' (NYSE:IIIN) stock is up by a considerable 12% over the past week. As most would know, fundamentals are what usually guide market price movements over the long-term, so we decided to look at the company's key financial indicators today to determine if they have any role to play in the recent price movement. In this article, we decided to focus on Insteel Industries' 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.

How Is ROE Calculated?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Insteel Industries is:

6.7% = US$22m ÷ US$334m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.07 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Insteel Industries' Earnings Growth And 6.7% ROE

When you first look at it, Insteel Industries' ROE doesn't look that attractive. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 17%. However, we we're pleasantly surprised to see that Insteel Industries grew its net income at a significant rate of 30% in the last five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

As a next step, we compared Insteel Industries' 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 13%.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It's important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is IIIN worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether IIIN is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Insteel Industries Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Insteel Industries' three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 3.5%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 97% of its profits. So it seems like the management is reinvesting profits heavily to grow its business and this reflects in its earnings growth number.

Moreover, Insteel Industries 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.

Summary

On the whole, we do feel that Insteel Industries has some positive attributes. Despite its low rate of return, the fact that the company reinvests a very high portion of its profits into its business, no doubt contributed to its high earnings growth. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. 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.