If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? 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. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Ergo, when we looked at the ROCE trends at National Beverage (NASDAQ:FIZZ), we liked what we saw.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for National Beverage, this is the formula:

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

0.40 = US$211m ÷ (US$673m - US$143m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to October 2023).

Therefore, National Beverage has an ROCE of 40%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 15% earned by companies in a similar industry.

Check out our latest analysis for National Beverage

Above you can see how the current ROCE for National Beverage 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 report on analyst forecasts for the company.

The Trend Of ROCE

We'd be pretty happy with returns on capital like National Beverage. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 40% and the business has deployed 21% more capital into its operations. With returns that high, it's great that the business can continually reinvest its money at such appealing rates of return. You'll see this when looking at well operated businesses or favorable business models.

What We Can Learn From National Beverage's ROCE

In summary, we're delighted to see that National Beverage has been compounding returns by reinvesting at consistently high rates of return, as these are common traits of a multi-bagger. Therefore it's no surprise that shareholders have earned a respectable 44% return if they held over the last five years. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we still believe the stock deserves further research.

If you want to continue researching National Beverage, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

National Beverage is not the only stock earning high returns. If you'd like to see more, check out our free list of companies earning high returns on equity with solid fundamentals.

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.