It is hard to get excited after looking at Cricut's (NASDAQ:CRCT) recent performance, when its stock has declined 18% over the past three months. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Cricut's ROE today.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Cricut is:
13% = US$63m ÷ US$467m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).
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 $0.13.
Check out our latest analysis for Cricut
What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. 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 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.
Cricut's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE
To start with, Cricut's ROE looks acceptable. Further, the company's ROE is similar to the industry average of 15%. As you might expect, the 21% net income decline reported by Cricut is a bit of a surprise. So, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.
So, as a next step, we compared Cricut's performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 16% over the last few years.
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. If you're wondering about Cricut's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio , as compared to its industry.
Is Cricut Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?
Despite having a normal three-year median payout ratio of 35% (where it is retaining 65% of its profits), Cricut 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.
In addition, Cricut only recently started paying a dividend so the management probably decided the shareholders prefer dividends even though earnings have been shrinking. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 63% over the next three years. Despite the higher expected payout ratio, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much.
Conclusion
Overall, we feel that Cricut certainly does have some positive factors to consider. 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. While we won't completely dismiss the company, what we would do, is try to ascertain how risky the business is to make a more informed decision around the company. Our risks dashboard will have the 1 risk we have identified for Cricut.
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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.