Is CorVel Corporation's (NASDAQ:CRVL) Latest Stock Performance A Reflection Of Its Financial Health?

Simply Wall St · 05/13 10:14

CorVel's (NASDAQ:CRVL) stock is up by a considerable 10% over the past month. Given that the market rewards strong financials in the long-term, we wonder if that is the case in this instance. Particularly, we will be paying attention to CorVel's ROE today.

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.

See our latest analysis for CorVel

How To 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 CorVel is:

32% = US$75m ÷ US$234m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.32 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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 CorVel's Earnings Growth And 32% ROE

Firstly, we acknowledge that CorVel has a significantly high ROE. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 11% which is quite remarkable. This likely paved the way for the modest 12% net income growth seen by CorVel over the past five years.

As a next step, we compared CorVel'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 5.6%.

past-earnings-growth
NasdaqGS:CRVL Past Earnings Growth May 13th 2024

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. 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 CorVel is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is CorVel Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

CorVel doesn't pay any regular dividends currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the decent earnings growth number that we discussed above.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with CorVel'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. If the company continues to grow its earnings the way it has, that could have a positive impact on its share price given how earnings per share influence long-term share prices. Remember, the price of a stock is also dependent on the perceived risk. Therefore investors must keep themselves informed about the risks involved before investing in any company. You can see the 1 risk we have identified for CorVel by visiting our risks dashboard for free on our platform here.