Yahoo Finance Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving Schlumberger Limited's (NYSE:SLB) Stock Up Recently?
Most readers would already be aware that Schlumberger's (NYSE:SLB) stock increased significantly by 13% over the past week. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Schlumberger's ROE today.
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 Schlumberger
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
Return on equity 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 Schlumberger is:
14% = US$2.1b ÷ US$16b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).
The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.14.
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.
A Side By Side comparison of Schlumberger's Earnings Growth And 14% ROE
To begin with, Schlumberger seems to have a respectable ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 5.9%. Needless to say, we are quite surprised to see that Schlumberger's net income shrunk at a rate of 15% over the past five years. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven't been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company's growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
As a next step, we compared Schlumberger's performance with the industry and found thatSchlumberger's performance is depressing even when compared with the industry, which has shrunk its earnings at a rate of 2.2% in the same period, which is a slower than the company.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. 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. Is SLB fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is Schlumberger Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Despite having a normal LTM (or last twelve month) payout ratio of 34% (where it is retaining 66% of its profits), Schlumberger has seen a decline in earnings as we saw above. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.
Moreover, Schlumberger has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 27%. Still, forecasts suggest that Schlumberger's future ROE will rise to 21% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.
Summary
In total, it does look like Schlumberger has some positive aspects to its business. 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. That being so, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that the analysts are expecting to see a huge improvement in the company's earnings growth rate. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts 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.
