GAMCO Investors Inc (NYSE:GBL): Should The Recent Earnings Drop Worry You?
Assessing GAMCO Investors Inc’s (NYSE:GBL) performance as a company requires looking at more than just a years’ earnings data. Below, I will run you through a simple sense check to build perspective on how GAMCO Investors is doing by comparing its most recent earnings with its historical trend, in addition to the performance of its capital markets industry peers. See our latest analysis for GAMCO Investors
Was GBL’s recent earnings decline indicative of a tough track record?
I use data from the most recent 12 months, which either annualizes the most recent 6-month earnings update, or in some cases, the most recent annual report is already the latest available financial data. This technique enables me to examine different companies in a uniform manner using the most relevant data points. For GAMCO Investors, its latest earnings (trailing twelve month) is $97.0M, which, against the previous year’s figure, has declined by -5.23%. Given that these values may be somewhat myopic, I’ve created an annualized five-year figure for GBL’s earnings, which stands at $93.7M. This means that though earnings growth was negative from the prior year, over time, GAMCO Investors’s profits have been rising on average.
What’s the driver of this growth? Let’s see if it is merely attributable to an industry uplift, or if GAMCO Investors has experienced some company-specific growth. In the last couple of years, GAMCO Investors expanded its bottom line faster than revenue by successfully controlling its costs. This brought about a margin expansion and profitability over time. Eyeballing growth from a sector-level, the US capital markets industry has been growing its average earnings by double-digit 18.01% over the past twelve months, and 11.21% over the past half a decade. This means that any tailwind the industry is deriving benefit from, GAMCO Investors has not been able to leverage it as much as its industry peers.
What does this mean?
GAMCO Investors’s track record can be a valuable insight into its earnings performance, but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. Companies are profitable, but have unpredictable earnings, can have many factors impacting its business. I suggest you continue to research GAMCO Investors to get a better picture of the stock by looking at:
1. Financial Health: Is GBL’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.
2. Valuation: What is GBL worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether GBL is currently mispriced by the market.
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 2017. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see pass 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.
