Yahoo Finance Did General Cable Corporation’s (NYSE:BGC) Recent Earnings Growth Beat The Trend?
Improvement in profitability and outperformance against the industry can be important characteristics in a stock for some investors. Below, I will assess General Cable Corporation’s (NYSE:BGC) track record on a high level, to give you some insight into how the company has been performing against its historical trend and its industry peers. See our latest analysis for General Cable
How BGC fared against its long-term earnings performance and its industry
I use the ‘latest twelve-month’ data, which annualizes the most recent half-year data, or in some cases, the latest annual report is already the most recent financial year data. This method enables me to examine various companies on a similar basis, using new information. For General Cable, its most recent earnings (trailing twelve month) is -US$73.30M, which compared to the prior year’s figure, has become less negative. Since these figures may be relatively short-term, I’ve computed an annualized five-year value for General Cable’s net income, which stands at -US$115.88M. This suggests that, though net income is negative, it has become less negative over the years.
We can further analyze General Cable’s loss by looking at what the industry has been experiencing over the past few years. Each year, for the past half a decade General Cable has seen an annual decline in revenue of -7.76%, on average. This adverse movement is a driver of the company’s inability to reach breakeven. Has the entire industry experienced this headwind? Inspecting growth from a sector-level, the US electrical industry has been growing, albeit, at a unexciting single-digit rate of 8.20% in the previous year, and a substantial 13.48% over the past five. This suggests that any tailwind the industry is benefiting from, General Cable has not been able to leverage it as much as its industry peers.
What does this mean?
While past data is useful, it doesn’t tell the whole story. With companies that are currently loss-making, it is always hard to envisage what will occur going forward, and when. The most valuable step is to assess company-specific issues General Cable may be facing and whether management guidance has dependably been met in the past. I suggest you continue to research General Cable to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for BGC’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for BGC’s outlook.
Financial Health: Is BGC’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 30 March 2018. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
