Return on Capital Employed Insights for Voya Financial

Pulled from Benzinga Pro data Voya Financial VOYA posted a 0.64% decrease in earnings from Q1. Sales, however, increased by 2.12% over the previous quarter to $193.00 million. Despite the increase in sales this quarter, the decrease in earnings may suggest Voya Financial is not utilizing their capital as effectively as possible. Voya Financial reached earnings of $1.09 billion and sales of $189.00 million in Q1.

What Is ROCE?

Return on Capital Employed is a measure of yearly pre-tax profit relative to capital employed by a business. Changes in earnings and sales indicate shifts in a company's ROCE. A higher ROCE is generally representative of successful growth of a company and is a sign of higher earnings per share in the future. A low or negative ROCE suggests the opposite. In Q2, Voya Financial posted an ROCE of 0.11%.

Keep in mind, while ROCE is a good measure of a company's recent performance, it is not a highly reliable predictor of a company's earnings or sales in the near future.

ROCE is an important metric for the comparison of similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Voya Financial 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.

In Voya Financial's case, the positive ROCE ratio will be something investors pay attention to before making long-term financial decisions.

Upcoming Earnings Estimate

Voya Financial reported Q2 earnings per share at $1.32/share, which did not meet analyst predictions of $1.36/share.