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What These Trends Mean At TriMas (NASDAQ:TRS)

When it comes to investing, there are some useful financial metrics that can warn us when a business is potentially in trouble. More often than not, we'll see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) and a declining amount of capital employed. Trends like this ultimately mean the business is reducing its investments and also earning less on what it has invested. And from a first read, things don't look too good at TriMas (NASDAQ:TRS), so let's see why.

Understanding 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. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for TriMas:

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

0.059 = US$63m ÷ (US$1.2b - US$113m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

Therefore, TriMas has an ROCE of 5.9%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Machinery industry average of 9.2%.

See our latest analysis for TriMas

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Above you can see how the current ROCE for TriMas 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.

What Can We Tell From TriMas' ROCE Trend?

In terms of TriMas' historical ROCE movements, the trend doesn't inspire confidence. About five years ago, returns on capital were 8.4%, however they're now substantially lower than that as we saw above. And on the capital employed front, the business is utilizing roughly the same amount of capital as it was back then. Since returns are falling and the business has the same amount of assets employed, this can suggest it's a mature business that hasn't had much growth in the last five years. So because these trends aren't typically conducive to creating a multi-bagger, we wouldn't hold our breath on TriMas becoming one if things continue as they have.

What We Can Learn From TriMas' ROCE

All in all, the lower returns from the same amount of capital employed aren't exactly signs of a compounding machine. In spite of that, the stock has delivered a 30% return to shareholders who held over the last five years. Either way, we aren't huge fans of the current trends and so with that we think you might find better investments elsewhere.

If you want to continue researching TriMas, you might be interested to know about the 4 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

While TriMas may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.

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