Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EXPD) Stock Been Rising: Are Strong Financials Guiding The Market?
Simply Wall St · 09/15 10:59

Most readers would already know that Expeditors International of Washington's (NASDAQ:EXPD) stock increased by 2.7% over the past month. 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 Expeditors International of Washington's 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.

View our latest analysis for Expeditors International of Washington

How Is ROE Calculated?

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 Expeditors International of Washington is:

41% = US$1.1b ÷ US$2.6b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.41 in profit.

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.

Expeditors International of Washington's Earnings Growth And 41% ROE

First thing first, we like that Expeditors International of Washington has an impressive ROE. Secondly, even when compared to the industry average of 15% the company's ROE is quite impressive. Under the circumstances, Expeditors International of Washington's considerable five year net income growth of 22% was to be expected.

As a next step, we compared Expeditors International of Washington's net income growth with the industry and found that the company has a similar growth figure when compared with the industry average growth rate of 20% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
NasdaqGS:EXPD Past Earnings Growth September 15th 2023

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Expeditors International of Washington fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Expeditors International of Washington Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Expeditors International of Washington has a really low three-year median payout ratio of 17%, meaning that it has the remaining 83% left over to reinvest into its business. So it seems like the management is reinvesting profits heavily to grow its business and this reflects in its earnings growth number.

Additionally, Expeditors International of Washington has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 27% over the next three years. Consequently, the higher expected payout ratio explains the decline in the company's expected ROE (to 25%) over the same period.

Conclusion

Overall, we are quite pleased with Expeditors International of Washington's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a sizeable growth in its earnings. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.