What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? Typically, we'll want to notice a trend of growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and alongside that, an expanding base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. That's why when we briefly looked at QinetiQ Group's (LON:QQ.) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

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 QinetiQ Group:

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

0.15 = UK￡216m ÷ (UK￡2.1b - UK￡686m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

Therefore, QinetiQ Group has an ROCE of 15%. That's a relatively normal return on capital, and it's around the 13% generated by the Aerospace & Defense industry.

See our latest analysis for QinetiQ Group

In the above chart we have measured QinetiQ Group'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 QinetiQ Group .

What The Trend Of ROCE Can Tell Us

While the returns on capital are good, they haven't moved much. The company has consistently earned 15% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 57% in that time. Since 15% is a moderate ROCE though, it's good to see a business can continue to reinvest at these decent rates of return. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

Our Take On QinetiQ Group's ROCE

To sum it up, QinetiQ Group has simply been reinvesting capital steadily, at those decent rates of return. Therefore it's no surprise that shareholders have earned a respectable 89% return if they held over the last five years. So while the positive underlying trends may be accounted for by investors, we still think this stock is worth looking into further.

QinetiQ Group could be trading at an attractive price in other respects, so you might find our free intrinsic value estimation for QQ. on our platform quite valuable.

While QinetiQ Group isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.