Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financials Look Strong: Should Prospective Shareholders Make The Leap?

Simply Wall St · 10/16 19:29

It is hard to get excited after looking at Murphy Oil's (NYSE:MUR) recent performance, when its stock has declined 21% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. Specifically, we decided to study Murphy Oil's ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for Murphy Oil

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE 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 Murphy Oil is:

13% = US$691m ÷ US$5.5b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.13 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. 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.

Murphy Oil's Earnings Growth And 13% ROE

At first glance, Murphy Oil seems to have a decent ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 16%, we aren't very excited. That being the case, the significant five-year 48% net income growth reported by Murphy Oil comes as a pleasant surprise. We believe that there might be other aspects that are positively influencing the company's earnings growth. For example, it is possible that the company's management has made some good strategic decisions, or that the company has a low payout ratio. Bear in mind, the company does have a respectable ROE. It is just that the industry ROE is higher. So this certainly also provides some context to the high earnings growth seen by the company.

We then compared Murphy Oil's net income growth with the industry and we're pleased to see that the company's growth figure is higher when compared with the industry which has a growth rate of 40% in the same 5-year period.

past-earnings-growth
NYSE:MUR Past Earnings Growth October 16th 2024

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. 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 Murphy Oil's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Murphy Oil Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Murphy Oil's three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 16%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 84% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Moreover, Murphy Oil is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 32% over the next three years. However, the company's ROE is not expected to change by much despite the higher expected payout ratio.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Murphy Oil's performance. Particularly, we like that the company is reinvesting heavily into its business at a moderate rate of return. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an impressive earnings growth. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.