Will The Market Correct The Share Price In The Future? –

With its stock down 34% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Syneos Health (NASDAQ:SYNH). However, the company’s fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Syneos Health’s ROE today.

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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company’s shareholders.

See our latest analysis for Syneos Health

How Do You 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 Syneos Health is:

8.4% = US$278m ÷ US$3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 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 $0.08 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. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Syneos Health’s Earnings Growth And 8.4% ROE

When you first look at it, Syneos Health’s ROE doesn’t look that attractive. We then compared the company’s ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 17%. In spite of this, Syneos Health was able to grow its net income considerably, at a rate of 55% in the last five years. So, there might be other aspects that are positively influencing the company’s earnings growth. For instance, the company has a low payout ratio or is being managed efficiently.

As a next step, we compared Syneos Health’s net income growth with the industry, and pleasingly, we found that the growth seen by the company is higher than the average industry growth of 35%.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. If you’re wondering about Syneos Health’s’s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Syneos Health Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

Syneos Health 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 high earnings growth number that we discussed above.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that Syneos Health has some positive attributes. With a high rate of reinvestment, albeit at a low ROE, the company has managed to see a considerable growth in its earnings. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company’s earnings growth is expected to slow down. 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.