If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. With that in mind, the ROCE of Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) looks great, so lets see what the trend can tell us.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

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. The formula for this calculation on Ferrari is:

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

0.28 = €1.6b ÷ (€8.1b - €2.3b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023).

Thus, Ferrari has an ROCE of 28%. In absolute terms that's a great return and it's even better than the Auto industry average of 10%.

View our latest analysis for Ferrari

In the above chart we have measured Ferrari's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Ferrari .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

Investors would be pleased with what's happening at Ferrari. The data shows that returns on capital have increased substantially over the last five years to 28%. 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 62%. The increasing returns on a growing amount of capital is common amongst multi-baggers and that's why we're impressed.

The Key Takeaway

In summary, it's great to see that Ferrari 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 a remarkable 204% total return over the last five years tells us that investors are expecting more good things to come in the future. With that being said, we still think the promising fundamentals mean the company deserves some further due diligence.

If you'd like to know about the risks facing Ferrari, we've discovered 1 warning sign that you should be aware of.

Ferrari 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.