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American Vanguard Corporation (NYSE:AVD) Stock's Been Sliding But Fundamentals Look Decent: Will The Market Correct The Share Price In The Future?

American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) has had a rough three months with its share price down 18%. However, the company's fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study American Vanguard's ROE in this article.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for American Vanguard

How To 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 American Vanguard is:

4.9% = US$18m ÷ US$360m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.05 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.

American Vanguard's Earnings Growth And 4.9% ROE

At first glance, American Vanguard's ROE doesn't look very promising. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 12%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. Thus, the low net income growth of 2.7% seen by American Vanguard over the past five years could probably be the result of the low ROE.

As a next step, we compared American Vanguard'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 3.3% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth
past-earnings-growth

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. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about American Vanguard's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is American Vanguard Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

American Vanguard's low three-year median payout ratio of 10.0% (or a retention ratio of 90%) should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth. However, the low earnings growth number doesn't reflect this as high growth usually follows high profit retention. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For example, the business has faced some headwinds.

Additionally, American Vanguard has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth.

Conclusion

Overall, we feel that American Vanguard certainly does have some positive factors to consider. That is, a decent growth in earnings backed by a high rate of reinvestment. However, we do feel that that earnings growth could have been higher if the business were to improve on the low ROE rate. Especially given how the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits. Having said that, looking at the current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings are expected to gain momentum. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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