Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Kirkland's, Inc. (NASDAQ:KIRK)?
Kirkland's (NASDAQ:KIRK) has had a rough three months with its share price down 57%. 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 Kirkland'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 simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
See our latest analysis for Kirkland's
How To Calculate Return On Equity?
The formula for ROE is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Kirkland's is:
19% = US$12m ÷ US$65m (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.19 in profit.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.
Kirkland's' Earnings Growth And 19% ROE
At first glance, Kirkland's seems to have a decent ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 32%, we aren't very excited. Although, we can see that Kirkland's saw a modest net income growth of 12% over the past five years. So, there might be other aspects that are positively influencing earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently. However, not to forget, the company does have a decent ROE to begin with, just that it is lower than the industry average. So this also provides some context to the earnings growth seen by the company.
As a next step, we compared Kirkland's' net income growth with the industry and were disappointed to see that the company's growth is lower than the industry average growth of 31% in the same period.
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. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is KIRK worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether KIRK is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Kirkland's Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?
Kirkland's doesn't pay any dividend currently which essentially means that it has been reinvesting all of its profits into the business. This definitely contributes to the decent earnings growth number that we discussed above.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Kirkland's certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Particularly, its earnings have grown respectably as we saw earlier, which was likely achieved due to the company reinvesting most of its earnings at a decent rate of return, to grow its business. 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. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
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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.
