Looking Into Argan's Return On Capital Employed

Looking at Q1, Argan AGX earned $13.82 million, a 16.44% increase from the preceding quarter. Argan also posted a total of $126.34 million in sales, a 7.77% increase since Q4. Argan earned $11.87 million, and sales totaled $117.23 million in Q4.

What Is ROCE?

Changes in earnings and sales indicate shifts in Argan's Return on Capital Employed, a measure of yearly pre-tax profit relative to capital employed by a business. Generally, a higher ROCE suggests successful growth of a company and is a sign of higher earnings per share in the future. In Q1, Argan posted an ROCE of 0.04%.

It is important to keep in mind ROCE evaluates past performance and is not used as a predictive tool. It is a good measure of a company's recent performance, but several factors could affect earnings and sales in the near future.

ROCE is an important metric for the comparison of similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Argan is potentially operating at a higher level of efficiency than other companies in its industry. If the company is generating high profits with its current level of capital, some of that money can be reinvested in more capital which will generally lead to higher returns and earnings per share growth.

For Argan, the return on capital employed ratio shows the number of assets can actually help the company achieve higher returns, an important note investors will take into account when gauging the payoff from long-term financing strategies.

Q1 Earnings Insight

Argan reported Q1 earnings per share at $0.67/share, which beat analyst predictions of $0.34/share.