To find a multi-bagger stock, what are the underlying trends we should look for in a business? Typically, we'll want to notice a trend of growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and alongside that, an expanding base of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Having said that, while the ROCE is currently high for Pool (NASDAQ:POOL), we aren't jumping out of our chairs because returns are decreasing.

Our free stock report includes 1 warning sign investors should be aware of before investing in Pool. Read for free now.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Pool:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.24 = US$617m ÷ (US$3.4b - US$844m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

So, Pool has an ROCE of 24%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Retail Distributors industry average of 11%.

View our latest analysis for Pool

In the above chart we have measured Pool's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Pool for free.

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Pool doesn't inspire confidence. Historically returns on capital were even higher at 31%, but they have dropped over the last five years. Meanwhile, the business is utilizing more capital but this hasn't moved the needle much in terms of sales in the past 12 months, so this could reflect longer term investments. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

What We Can Learn From Pool's ROCE

In summary, Pool is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. Although the market must be expecting these trends to improve because the stock has gained 71% over the last five years. However, unless these underlying trends turn more positive, we wouldn't get our hopes up too high.

If you want to continue researching Pool, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

If you'd like to see other companies earning high returns, check out our free list of companies earning high returns with solid balance sheets here.

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