Benzinga | Nov 4, 2021 11:35AM EDT

How Good Are Howard Hughes's Earnings? | Return On Capital Employed

According to Benzinga Pro, during Q2, Howard Hughes (NYSE:HHC) earned $4.99 million, a 120.14% increase from the preceding quarter. Howard Hughes also posted a total of $212.46 million in sales, a 11.48% increase since Q1. In Q1, Howard Hughes brought in $190.58 million in sales but lost $24.77 million in earnings.

What Is Return On Capital Employed?

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, Howard Hughes posted an ROCE of 0.0%.

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 a powerful metric for comparing the effectiveness of capital allocation for similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Howard Hughes 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, ultimately, earnings per share (EPS) growth.

For Howard Hughes, the positive return on capital employed ratio of 0.0% suggests that management is allocating their capital effectively. Effective capital allocation is a positive indicator that a company will achieve more durable success and favorable long-term returns.

Analyst Predictions

Howard Hughes reported Q2 earnings per share at $-0.06/share, which beat analyst predictions of $-0.41/share.