Is Franklin Electric Co., Inc.'s (NASDAQ:FELE) Recent Stock Performance Tethered To Its Strong Fundamentals?

Franklin Electric (NASDAQ:FELE) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 29% over the last three months. Given the company's impressive performance, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely as a company's financial health over the long-term usually dictates market outcomes. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Franklin Electric'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. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

View our latest analysis for Franklin Electric

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 Franklin Electric is:

18% = US$177m ÷ US$989m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.18 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Franklin Electric's Earnings Growth And 18% ROE

At first glance, Franklin Electric seems to have a decent ROE. Further, the company's ROE compares quite favorably to the industry average of 12%. This certainly adds some context to Franklin Electric's decent 14% net income growth seen over the past five years.

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Franklin Electric's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 7.9% in the same period, which is great to see.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is FELE fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.

Is Franklin Electric Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Franklin Electric has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 26% (or a retention ratio of 74%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Moreover, Franklin Electric 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.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with Franklin Electric'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. 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 company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.

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