Is Weakness In USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NYSE:USNA) Stock A Sign That The Market Could be Wrong Given Its Strong Financial Prospects?
USANA Health Sciences (NYSE:USNA) has had a rough three months with its share price down 22%. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financial performance over the long term, which in this case looks quite promising. In this article, we decided to focus on USANA Health Sciences' ROE.
Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.
Check out our latest analysis for USANA Health Sciences
How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?
ROE can be calculated by using the formula:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for USANA Health Sciences is:
22% = US$89m ÷ US$404m (Based on the trailing twelve months to July 2022).
The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.22 in profit.
Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. 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.
USANA Health Sciences' Earnings Growth And 22% ROE
First thing first, we like that USANA Health Sciences has an impressive ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 17% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Probably as a result of this, USANA Health Sciences was able to see a decent net income growth of 7.4% over the last five years.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that USANA Health Sciences' reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 21% in the same period, which is not something we like to see.
Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Is USNA fairly valued? This infographic on the company's intrinsic value has everything you need to know.
Is USANA Health Sciences Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
USANA Health Sciences 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
On the whole, we feel that USANA Health Sciences' performance has been quite good. In particular, it's great to see that the company is investing heavily into its business and along with a high rate of return, that has resulted in a respectable growth in its earnings. 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. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page 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.
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