It is hard to get excited after looking at Shoe Carnival's (NASDAQ:SCVL) recent performance, when its stock has declined 37% over the past three months. 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 Shoe Carnival's ROE.

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 Shoe Carnival

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 Shoe Carnival is:

12% = US$75m ÷ US$636m (Based on the trailing twelve months to November 2024).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.12 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. 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 everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Shoe Carnival's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE

To begin with, Shoe Carnival seems to have a respectable ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 20%, we aren't very excited. Although, we can see that Shoe Carnival saw a modest net income growth of 15% over the past five years. Therefore, the growth in earnings could probably have been caused by other variables. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place. However, not to forget, the company does have a decent ROE to begin with, just that it is lower than the industry average. So this also does lend some color to the fairly high earnings growth seen by the company.

We then performed a comparison between Shoe Carnival's net income growth with the industry, which revealed that the company's growth is similar to the average industry growth of 16% in the same 5-year period.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. The investor should try to establish if the expected growth or decline in earnings, whichever the case may be, is priced in. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Shoe Carnival is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Shoe Carnival Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Shoe Carnival has a low three-year median payout ratio of 11%, meaning that the company retains the remaining 89% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business.

Moreover, Shoe Carnival is determined to keep sharing its profits with shareholders which we infer from its long history of paying a dividend for at least ten years.

Summary

In total, we are pretty happy with Shoe Carnival's performance. In particular, it's great to see that the company has seen significant growth in its earnings backed by a respectable ROE and a high reinvestment rate. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. 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.