Yahoo Finance DRDGOLD Limited's (NYSE:DRD) Stock Is Going Strong: Is the Market Following Fundamentals?
DRDGOLD's (NYSE:DRD) stock is up by a considerable 20% over the past month. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term fundamentals, we decided to study the company’s key performance indicators to see if they could be influencing the market. In this article, we decided to focus on DRDGOLD'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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
View our latest analysis for DRDGOLD
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 DRDGOLD is:
21% = R1.1b ÷ R5.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.21.
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. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of DRDGOLD's Earnings Growth And 21% ROE
At first glance, DRDGOLD seems to have a decent ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 20% the company's ROE looks quite decent. This certainly adds some context to DRDGOLD's exceptional 57% net income growth seen over the past five years. However, there could also be other drivers behind this growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that DRDGOLD's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 30% in the same period, which is great to see.
Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. 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 DRDGOLD is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.
Is DRDGOLD Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
DRDGOLD has a significant three-year median payout ratio of 68%, meaning the company only retains 32% of its income. This implies that the company has been able to achieve high earnings growth despite returning most of its profits to shareholders.
Additionally, DRDGOLD 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.
Conclusion
In total, we are pretty happy with DRDGOLD's performance. Especially the high ROE, Which has contributed to the impressive growth seen in earnings. Despite the company reinvesting only a small portion of its profits, it still has managed to grow its earnings so that is appreciable. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.
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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.
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