With its stock down 4.0% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Ferrari (NYSE:RACE). However, a closer look at its sound financials might cause you to think again. Given that fundamentals usually drive long-term market outcomes, the company is worth looking at. Specifically, we decided to study Ferrari's ROE in this article.

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.

View our latest analysis for Ferrari

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity 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 Ferrari is:

43% = €1.4b ÷ €3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.43.

Why Is ROE Important For Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. 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.

Ferrari's Earnings Growth And 43% ROE

To begin with, Ferrari has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 15% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Probably as a result of this, Ferrari was able to see a decent net income growth of 18% over the last five years.

We then performed a comparison between Ferrari's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 18% in the same 5-year period.

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. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Is Ferrari fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Is Ferrari Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Ferrari has a healthy combination of a moderate three-year median payout ratio of 31% (or a retention ratio of 69%) and a respectable amount of growth in earnings as we saw above, meaning that the company has been making efficient use of its profits.

Additionally, Ferrari has paid dividends over a period of nine years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company is expected to keep paying out approximately 36% of its profits over the next three years. Accordingly, forecasts suggest that Ferrari's future ROE will be 36% which is again, similar to the current ROE.

Summary

On the whole, we feel that Ferrari's performance has been quite good. Specifically, we like that the company is reinvesting a huge chunk of its profits at a high rate of return. This of course has caused the company to see substantial growth in its earnings. That being so, a study of the latest analyst forecasts show that the company is expected to see a slowdown in its future earnings growth. 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.