What You Must Know About Almost Family Inc’s (NASDAQ:AFAM) Return on Equity
Almost Family Inc’s (NASDAQ:AFAM) most recent return on equity was a substandard 4.29% relative to its industry performance of 11.45% over the past year. AFAM’s results could indicate a relatively inefficient operation to its peers, and while this may be the case, it is important to understand what ROE is made up of and how it should be interpreted. Knowing these components could change your view on AFAM’s performance. Metrics such as financial leverage can impact the level of ROE which in turn can affect the sustainability of AFAM’s returns. Let me show you what I mean by this. View our latest analysis for Almost Family
Breaking down Return on Equity
Return on Equity (ROE) is a measure of Almost Family’s profit relative to its shareholders’ equity. It essentially shows how much the company can generate in earnings given the amount of equity it has raised. While a higher ROE is preferred in most cases, there are several other factors we should consider before drawing any conclusions.
Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders Equity
ROE is measured against cost of equity in order to determine the efficiency of Almost Family’s equity capital deployed. Its cost of equity is 8.49%. Given a discrepancy of -4.20% between return and cost, this indicated that Almost Family may be paying more for its capital than what it’s generating in return. ROE can be broken down into three different ratios: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage. This is called the Dupont Formula:
Dupont Formula
ROE = profit margin × asset turnover × financial leverage
ROE = (annual net profit ÷ sales) × (sales ÷ assets) × (assets ÷ shareholders’ equity)
ROE = annual net profit ÷ shareholders’ equity
Essentially, profit margin shows how much money the company makes after paying for all its expenses. The other component, asset turnover, illustrates how much revenue Almost Family can make from its asset base. And finally, financial leverage is simply how much of assets are funded by equity, which exhibits how sustainable the company’s capital structure is. Since financial leverage can artificially inflate ROE, we need to look at how much debt Almost Family currently has. Currently the debt-to-equity ratio stands at a low 26.91%, which means Almost Family still has headroom to take on more leverage in order to increase profits.
Next Steps:
ROE is a simple yet informative ratio, illustrating the various components that each measure the quality of the overall stock. Almost Family’s below-industry ROE is disappointing, furthermore, its returns were not even high enough to cover its own cost of equity. Although, its appropriate level of leverage means investors can be more confident in the sustainability of Almost Family’s return with a possible increase should the company decide to increase its debt levels. ROE is a helpful signal, but it is definitely not sufficient on its own to make an investment decision.
For Almost Family, there are three essential factors you should look at:
1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
2. Valuation: What is Almost Family 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 Almost Family is currently mispriced by the market.
3. Other High-Growth Alternatives : Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Almost Family? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large growth potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
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.
