Is Oxford Instruments plc's (LON:OXIG) Latest Stock Performance Being Led By Its Strong Fundamentals?

Oxford Instruments' (LON:OXIG) stock is up by 9.9% over the past three months. Since the market usually pay for a company’s long-term financial health, we decided to study the company’s fundamentals to see if they could be influencing the market. Specifically, we decided to study Oxford Instruments' ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

Check out our latest analysis for Oxford Instruments

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

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

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Oxford Instruments is:

14% = UK£33m ÷ UK£240m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).

The 'return' is the profit 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.

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. 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. 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.

Oxford Instruments' Earnings Growth And 14% ROE

At first glance, Oxford Instruments seems to have a decent ROE. Especially when compared to the industry average of 11% the company's ROE looks pretty impressive. This certainly adds some context to Oxford Instruments' exceptional 52% net income growth seen over the past five years. We reckon that there could also 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 Oxford Instruments' 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 20%.

past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is Oxford Instruments fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Oxford Instruments Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Oxford Instruments' three-year median payout ratio is a pretty moderate 26%, meaning the company retains 74% of its income. So it seems that Oxford Instruments is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees impressive growth in its earnings (discussed above) and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Besides, Oxford Instruments has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Existing analyst estimates suggest that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 20% over the next three years.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Oxford Instruments' 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. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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