We Like These Underlying Trends At Daily Journal (NASDAQ:DJCO)
If we want to find a potential multi-bagger, often there are underlying trends that can provide clues. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in Daily Journal's (NASDAQ:DJCO) returns on capital, so let's have a look.
What is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?
If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Daily Journal, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.00052 = US$110k ÷ (US$239m - US$28m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2020).
So, Daily Journal has an ROCE of 0.05%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Media industry average of 9.4%.
Check out our latest analysis for Daily Journal
Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Daily Journal's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating Daily Journal's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.
How Are Returns Trending?
We're delighted to see that Daily Journal is reaping rewards from its investments and is now generating some pre-tax profits. Shareholders would no doubt be pleased with this because the business was loss-making five years ago but is is now generating 0.05% on its capital. And unsurprisingly, like most companies trying to break into the black, Daily Journal is utilizing 30% more capital than it was five years ago. This can indicate that there's plenty of opportunities to invest capital internally and at ever higher rates, both common traits of a multi-bagger.
On a related note, the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets has decreased to 12%, which basically reduces it's funding from the likes of short-term creditors or suppliers. So this improvement in ROCE has come from the business' underlying economics, which is great to see.
In Conclusion...
In summary, it's great to see that Daily Journal has managed to break into profitability and is continuing to reinvest in its business. And a remarkable 106% total return over the last five years tells us that investors are expecting more good things to come in the future. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it's worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist.
On a final note, we've found 3 warning signs for Daily Journal that we think you should be aware of.
For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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