For long-term investors, assessing earnings trend over time and against industry benchmarks is more beneficial than examining a single earnings announcement at a point in time. Investors may find my commentary, albeit very high-level and brief, on Bertrandt Aktiengesellschaft (FRA:BDT) useful as an attempt to give more color around how Bertrandt is currently performing.

View our latest analysis for Bertrandt

How Did BDT’s Recent Performance Stack Up Against Its Past?

BDT’s trailing twelve-month earnings (from 30 September 2018) of €47m has increased by 8.0% compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, this one-year growth rate has exceeded its 5-year annual growth average of -5.8%, indicating the rate at which BDT is growing has accelerated. What’s enabled this growth? Let’s see whether it is solely a result of industry tailwinds, or if Bertrandt has experienced some company-specific growth.

In terms of returns from investment, Bertrandt has fallen short of achieving a 20% return on equity (ROE), recording 12% instead. Furthermore, its return on assets (ROA) of 6.4% is below the DE Professional Services industry of 7.6%, indicating Bertrandt’s are utilized less efficiently. And finally, its return on capital (ROC), which also accounts for Bertrandt’s debt level, has declined over the past 3 years from 25% to 11%. This correlates with an increase in debt holding, with debt-to-equity ratio rising from 0.09% to 55% over the past 5 years.

What does this mean?

Though Bertrandt’s past data is helpful, it is only one aspect of my investment thesis. Recent positive growth isn’t always indicative of a continued optimistic outlook. There could be factors that are affecting the industry as a whole, hence the high industry growth rate over the same time frame. I recommend you continue to research Bertrandt to get a better picture of the stock by looking at:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for BDT’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for BDT’s outlook.

2. Financial Health: Are BDT’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.

3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 30 September 2018. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.