World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE:WWE) has had a rough month with its share price down 11%. But if you pay close attention, you might gather that its strong financials could mean that the stock could potentially see an increase in value in the long-term, given how markets usually reward companies with good financial health. Particularly, we will be paying attention to World Wrestling Entertainment'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 other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for World Wrestling Entertainment

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 World Wrestling Entertainment is:

35% = US$130m ÷ US$373m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2021).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn $0.35 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.

A Side By Side comparison of World Wrestling Entertainment's Earnings Growth And 35% ROE

To begin with, World Wrestling Entertainment has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 11% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Under the circumstances, World Wrestling Entertainment's considerable five year net income growth of 35% was to be expected.

As a next step, we compared World Wrestling Entertainment'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 26%.

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. 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 World Wrestling Entertainment is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is World Wrestling Entertainment Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?

World Wrestling Entertainment's three-year median payout ratio is a pretty moderate 34%, meaning the company retains 66% of its income. So it seems that World Wrestling Entertainment is reinvesting efficiently in a way that it sees impressive growth in its earnings (discussed above) and pays a dividend that's well covered.

Additionally, World Wrestling Entertainment has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 18% over the next three years. Accordingly, the expected drop in the payout ratio explains the expected increase in the company's ROE to 46%, over the same period.

Conclusion

In total, we are pretty happy with World Wrestling Entertainment'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 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. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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.

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