Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) Is Doing The Right Things To Multiply Its Share Price

Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. So when we looked at Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Etsy:

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

0.13 = US$437m ÷ (US$3.7b - US$483m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).

Thus, Etsy has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Online Retail industry average of 11% it's much better.

Check out our latest analysis for Etsy

In the above chart we have measured Etsy's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for Etsy.

What Can We Tell From Etsy's ROCE Trend?

We like the trends that we're seeing from Etsy. Over the last five years, returns on capital employed have risen substantially to 13%. The company is effectively making more money per dollar of capital used, and it's worth noting that the amount of capital has increased too, by 625%. So we're very much inspired by what we're seeing at Etsy thanks to its ability to profitably reinvest capital.

Our Take On Etsy's ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that Etsy can compound returns by consistently reinvesting capital at increasing rates of return, because these are some of the key ingredients of those highly sought after multi-baggers. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. With that being said, we still think the promising fundamentals mean the company deserves some further due diligence.

If you want to continue researching Etsy, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

While Etsy isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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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.