If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in IVU Traffic Technologies' (ETR:IVU) returns on capital, so let's have a look.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on IVU Traffic Technologies is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.16 = €14m ÷ (€134m - €48m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, IVU Traffic Technologies has an ROCE of 16%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 12% generated by the Software industry.

View our latest analysis for IVU Traffic Technologies

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for IVU Traffic Technologies' ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how IVU Traffic Technologies has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What Can We Tell From IVU Traffic Technologies' ROCE Trend?

Investors would be pleased with what's happening at IVU Traffic Technologies. The data shows that returns on capital have increased substantially over the last five years to 16%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 87%. The increasing returns on a growing amount of capital is common amongst multi-baggers and that's why we're impressed.

The Bottom Line On IVU Traffic Technologies' ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that IVU Traffic Technologies can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. Therefore, we think it would be worth your time to check if these trends are going to continue.

On a final note, we've found 1 warning sign for IVU Traffic Technologies that we think you should be aware of.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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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.