With its stock down 17% over the past three months, it is easy to disregard Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER). 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. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Teradyne's ROE today.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

See our latest analysis for Teradyne

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 Teradyne is:

26% = US$637m ÷ US$2.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2023).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. So, this means that for every $1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of $0.26.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And 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 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.

A Side By Side comparison of Teradyne's Earnings Growth And 26% ROE

First thing first, we like that Teradyne has an impressive ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 17% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. So, the substantial 21% net income growth seen by Teradyne over the past five years isn't overly surprising.

We then compared Teradyne's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 31% in the same period, which is a bit concerning.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. 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. What is TER worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TER is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Teradyne Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Teradyne's three-year median payout ratio to shareholders is 8.3%, which is quite low. This implies that the company is retaining 92% of its profits. This suggests that the management is reinvesting most of the profits to grow the business as evidenced by the growth seen by the company.

Besides, Teradyne has been paying dividends over a period of nine years. This shows that the company is committed to sharing profits with its shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company over the next three years is expected to be approximately 8.1%. Still, forecasts suggest that Teradyne's future ROE will rise to 33% even though the the company's payout ratio is not expected to change by much.

Summary

Overall, we are quite pleased with Teradyne's performance. 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 a good amount of growth in its earnings. On studying current analyst estimates, we found that analysts expect the company to continue its recent growth streak. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

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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.