All articles tagged with "ROIC"
Amphenol posted 52% revenue growth, 450bps of margin expansion, and closed its largest acquisition in history. The stock dropped. DuPont decomposition explains why: 86% of the balance sheet growth came from a single quarter, and incremental returns fell below the cost of debt.
86% of Amazon's ROIC decline is capital turnover compression — not margin deterioration. The 10-K reveals why: $59B in new servers, a depreciation reversal on AI hardware, and $440B in irrevocable commitments. At $200B capex, the margin of safety is compressing.
Howmet Aerospace earns 34% gross margins with sole-source pricing power in jet engine castings — yet GAAP ROIC is only 18.6%. The FY2025 10-K reveals why: $4.5 billion in legacy goodwill from the Alcoa-Arconic spinoff chain sits on the balance sheet generating zero revenue. Tangible ROIC is 35%. Cash ROIC hit 28% in Q4. The market prices HWM at 59x earnings anyway — and a $1.8B acquisition is about to add more goodwill.
Meta's Family of Apps earns a 51.5% operating margin. Its ROIC is declining at -6.3 points per quarter. Both facts are true simultaneously. The gap between them reveals everything about the largest AI infrastructure bet in advertising history — and the accounting policies designed to make it look cheaper than it is.
Screen 50 stocks by ROIC, FCF Yield, and 3 other metrics yfinance cannot provide. Percentile-ranked composite score: Quality (60%) + Value (40%). One script, one API call, no signup.
A stock with a low PE looks cheap. But if ROIC is declining, you're buying a deteriorating business at a discount that keeps getting bigger. Stock Pulse compares any stock to its own 2-year baseline and diagnoses VALUE TRAP or OPPORTUNITY. One API call, no signup.
We computed ROIC from XBRL financial data for every NYSE-listed copper miner with processed filings. Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) — the world's largest publicly traded copper producer — earns the lowest return on invested capital at 9.2%, while Southern Copper (SCCO) generates 24.2% on half the revenue. The 10-K filings reveal why: FCX's Indonesia operations depend on $2.82/lb gold credits to achieve negative cash costs, while SCCO's $0.89/lb cost structure is built on vertical integration and 60-year mine lives.
Compare any two stocks across Valuation and Quality panels — ROIC, FCF Margin, EV/EBIT, FCF Yield, and Total Shareholder Yield that yfinance cannot provide. One API call, no signup. Clone the repo and run it in 60 seconds.
Data centers need contractors. But which contractor stocks are worth buying? This practical framework covers the 5 metrics that matter: ROIC, backlog, operating margin, DSO, and cash conversion—with real benchmarks and SEC filing examples.
FIX has 40.8% ROIC. PWR has 9.7%—despite 4x the revenue. The 'data center exposure' explanation is incomplete. The full story: FIX earns 2.5x higher margins AND turns assets 30% faster. Here's the DuPont analysis of six infrastructure contractors building America's data centers.
Intuitive Surgical generates 3x the returns on capital of Medtronic and Stryker. DuPont decomposition reveals ISRG wins on both NOPAT margin (25.6% vs 15%) AND capital turnover (0.84x vs 0.49x) — a rare double advantage. The counter-intuitive finding: high stock compensation actually understates their operating efficiency.
Both Jabil (29% ROIC) and Celestica (39% ROIC) rank among the best capital allocators in EMS. But DuPont decomposition reveals they get there through opposite mechanisms — JBL wins on turnover (13x), CLS wins on margin (10.2%). The counter-intuitive finding: CLS has better metrics AND faster growth, yet trades at an apparent discount. Here's what the data reveals.
Boston Scientific has 69% gross margins. Abbott has 56%. Yet Abbott's ROIC is 2.6x higher. This paradox reveals something fundamental about capital efficiency in medical devices—and why screening for 'high margin' stocks can lead you astray.
The conventional wisdom says Visa is the safer, higher-quality payment stock. Our ROIC analysis tells a different story: Mastercard's 78% ROIC dwarfs Visa's 36%, and the reason reveals something important about how to read these metrics.
CL has the highest ROIC (34.4%), yet PG—with the lowest ROIC (23.9%)—shows the strongest improvement trajectory (+21.6% over 8 quarters). Meanwhile, KO's superior cash generation masks a $12 billion tax liability. Here's how to read beyond the headline metrics.
Oracle's -$10B Q2 free cash flow triggered alarm bells. Decomposition reveals the collapse is 70% working capital timing, not structural deterioration. The real story: $248B in off-balance sheet lease commitments dwarfs their $100B balance sheet debt. This is the largest infrastructure bet in enterprise software history.
Adobe's ROIC didn't just beat peers—it doubled in 8 quarters. The story isn't 'Adobe has high ROIC.' It's WHY it improved from 50% to 105% while Salesforce stayed at 12%. DuPont decomposition reveals the answer.
Three fuel cell companies target AI data center power, but execution quality varies dramatically. Bloom Energy's +4.5% ROIC vs Plug Power's -104% isn't a small difference—it's a fundamental divide between a functioning business and a value destroyer. Our SEC filing analysis reveals warning signs even for the winner.
GE Vernova's Electrification segment grew +32% YoY, but the company trades at 98.9x earnings with a 3.57% ROIC. Eaton's Electrical Americas grew +15% with 30.3% operating margins—twice GEV's margin at half the P/E. MetricDuck data shows why quality beats hype in AI infrastructure.
PSX 21% ROIC vs VLO 4.5%? The numbers lie. VLO's Cash ROIC is 23.3%—actually the highest. One-time California impairments distort the picture. Here's the analytical framework that matters.
Yum Brands' shareholder equity is -$7.5 billion. Yet its ROIC is 50.8% - 2.2x McDonald's 22.8%. This isn't financial engineering. It's the byproduct of franchise economics: when a business doesn't need capital, it returns excess to shareholders. We break down the mechanism behind negative equity in asset-light models.
The market bet on CVX after Maduro's arrest, but the data reveals COP's pure E&P model (29.9% ROIC) plus $8.5B in claims creates asymmetric upside. Chevron books zero proved reserves in Venezuela despite being the only US operator. Which exposure would you rather have?
Palantir (14.6% SBC) and AppLovin (2.4% SBC) both grew revenue ~65% in Q3 2025. So why does one require 6x more equity compensation? Our SEC filing analysis reveals diverging trajectories that matter more than static spreads: APP's SBC is declining 38% YoY while PLTR's is accelerating 42% YoY. The difference: human-intensive vs AI-engine scaling economics.
Wall Street treats homebuilders as a monolithic 'housing play.' But our analysis reveals a 4x ROIC spread (NVR 35% vs LEN 9%) that cannot be explained by margins alone. The divergence stems from three structural factors: NVR's asset-light lot model vs LEN's Millrose spin-off creating structural margin compression, DHI's $26B in specific performance land contracts creating downside asymmetry, and NVR's paradoxically 'cautious' guidance signaling genuine competitive strength.
The semiconductor equipment ROIC spread (LRCX 54% vs AMAT 27%) is observable in any screener. But SEC filings reveal four hidden signals: AMAT faces TWO government investigations plus $181M restructuring, KLAC's AI packaging segment grew 37% with 401bps margin expansion (proving AI demand is real), LRCX's cash conversion is declining -23.7% (hidden stress beneath high ROIC), and ASML's 4-customer concentration creates feast-or-famine cycles.
KLA Corporation delivers 43% ROIC—highest in semiconductor equipment. But SEC filings reveal 33% China revenue concentration, DOJ export investigations, and rare earth supply risks. Our DuPont analysis shows KLAC's zero-debt, asset-light model drives returns, while ASML's 75% invested capital growth explains its ROIC decline. Lam Research emerges as the 'boring winner' with stable returns and minimal risk.
Wall Street loves CVNA's +30% ROIC turnaround story. But our 8-quarter trajectory analysis reveals CarMax is in crisis mode: CEO fired December 2025, forced margin cuts, -8% volume decline. The data shows this isn't online vs traditional—it's about execution quality.
Novo Nordisk outearns Eli Lilly on every margin metric: 84.7% gross margin vs 82.9%, 44.2% operating margin vs 44.4%, and 41.7% FCF margin vs ~27%. Yet LLY's 52% ROIC far exceeds NVO's—which appears as an anomalous -3.6%. This isn't a data error: NVO's negative invested capital reveals an extraordinarily asset-light business model where the standard ROIC formula breaks down. For margin-focused investors, NVO wins. For capital efficiency purists, LLY dominates.
Eli Lilly's ROIC doubled from 23% to 52% in 2.5 years as Mounjaro and Zepbound drove 54% revenue growth. Meanwhile, AbbVie's Humira declined 56% to biosimilar competition, testing whether Skyrizi and Rinvoq can fill a $20B revenue gap. This pharma divergence reveals how drug pipelines translate to capital efficiency.
AppLovin's ROIC went from 4.5% to 75% in 2.5 years while revenue growth accelerated from +17% to +86%. Meanwhile, Unity's ironSource merger resulted in -9% ROIC and declining revenue. The data reveals one of the most dramatic capital efficiency divergences in tech history.
ARM Holdings generates 97% gross margin—the highest in semiconductors. Yet only 4% reaches free cash flow. Taiwan Semiconductor earns 56% gross margin but converts 63% to FCF. Intel, despite $5.7 billion in CHIPS Act disbursements, still burns cash. We analyzed 20-F and 10-Q filings to explain these capital efficiency gaps.
Devon Energy generated 48% ROIC in Q3 2025. ExxonMobil generated 11%. Both produce oil and gas. Why the 4.5x difference? The answer lies in capital allocation: XOM returns 73% of FCF as dividends while pure E&P operators reinvest in high-return wells.
Walmart's net margin is actually higher than Costco's (3.96% vs 2.97%). But Costco's ROIC is 2x higher (41.2% vs 20.9%). The difference isn't profit margin—it's asset turnover. Here's the DuPont decomposition of retail capital efficiency.
Honeywell is spinning into THREE companies by 2026. But while management focuses on restructuring, ROIC has quietly declined from 26.3% to 19.4% over 8 quarters. Here's what's dragging down returns and which segments might escape the trap.
Qualcomm's consolidated margins hide a secret: the QTL licensing segment earns 72% operating margin vs QCT hardware's 30%. When Apple moves fully to in-house modems, what happens to QCOM's profitability? Our semiconductor ROIC comparison reveals the answer.
EQIX's capex intensity jumped +8.7pp in 8 quarters. CCI's ROIC collapsed to -12%. ANET's customer concentration is HIGH (Microsoft + Meta). Standard screeners show none of this. Here's our 4-signal framework for screening AI data center infrastructure stocks.
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) measures how efficiently a company turns invested capital into profit. Our ROIC research library covers sector benchmarks from 938 companies and detailed peer comparisons across 8 industries—everything you need to identify high-quality stocks.
ROIC measures how efficiently a company turns capital into profits. A good ROIC is 15%+ for most sectors, but utilities median is 5.7% while retail is 15.9%. This guide shows you exactly how to calculate, interpret, and screen for ROIC using original data from 938 companies.
Wall Street ranks Lockheed Martin's 30% ROIC as best-in-class. But our 8-quarter trajectory analysis reveals LMT's capital efficiency is actually declining (-0.018 trend) while RTX improves (+0.004). The data suggests the market may be mispricing defense contractor quality.
Compare any S&P 500 company against 10 competitors using 20+ metrics with 5-7 temporal dimensions each. MetricDuck's free peer comparison tool automates 3-5 hours of manual Excel work in 2 minutes with 8-quarter trends, YoY analysis, and SEC-backed data.
Manual ROIC screening takes 4+ hours per session. Learn our 5-step framework with sector-specific benchmarks from 938 companies showing why retail median ROIC (15.9%) differs from utilities (5.7%). Screen 500+ companies in 30 minutes with sector-adjusted thresholds.