What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. So, when we ran our eye over Garmin's (NYSE:GRMN) trend of ROCE, we liked what we saw.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Garmin:

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

0.18 = US$1.4b ÷ (US$9.3b - US$1.6b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2024).

Thus, Garmin has an ROCE of 18%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 14% generated by the Consumer Durables industry.

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Garmin compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Garmin .

What Does the ROCE Trend For Garmin Tell Us?

While the returns on capital are good, they haven't moved much. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 18% and the business has deployed 65% more capital into its operations. Since 18% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

The Key Takeaway

In the end, Garmin has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. And long term investors would be thrilled with the 141% return they've received over the last five years. So even though the stock might be more "expensive" than it was before, we think the strong fundamentals warrant this stock for further research.

Garmin could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation for GRMN on our platform quite valuable.

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.