Yahoo Finance Declining Stock and Solid Fundamentals: Is The Market Wrong About Huntsman Corporation (NYSE:HUN)?
With its stock down 18% over the past month, it is easy to disregard Huntsman (NYSE:HUN). However, a closer look at its sound financials might cause you to think again. Given that fundamentals usually drive long-term market outcomes, the company is worth looking at. Specifically, we decided to study Huntsman's ROE in this article.
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 simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
View our latest analysis for Huntsman
How Is ROE Calculated?
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 Huntsman is:
30% = US$1.3b ÷ US$4.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
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 $0.30 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. 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 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.
Huntsman's Earnings Growth And 30% ROE
Firstly, we acknowledge that Huntsman has a significantly high ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 16% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. As a result, Huntsman's exceptional 23% net income growth seen over the past five years, doesn't come as a surprise.
As a next step, we compared Huntsman'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 9.3%.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. What is HUN worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether HUN is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Huntsman Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Huntsman has a three-year median payout ratio of 38% (where it is retaining 62% of its income) which is not too low or not too high. This suggests that its dividend is well covered, and given the high growth we discussed above, it looks like Huntsman is reinvesting its earnings efficiently.
Additionally, Huntsman has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 22% over the next three years. Regardless, the future ROE for Huntsman is predicted to decline to 17% despite the anticipated decrease in the payout ratio. We reckon that there could probably be other factors that could be driving the forseen decline in the company's ROE.
Summary
In total, we are pretty happy with Huntsman'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. That being so, according to the latest industry analyst forecasts, the company's earnings are expected to shrink 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.
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.
Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
