Sustainable Growth Rate - SGR

  

Categories: Econ

The company's swear word mug was a hit in the U.S. It had $1 a share in earnings last quarter. Then, in a 5-week period, it released the mug in multiple languages in 36 countries, where it was also a huge hit. That next quarter, it had $3 in earnings. So some genius analyst on Wall Street wrote a report claiming, "At this rate of growth, the company could produce $5 then $7 in earnings this year, then $9 and $11 and $13 and $15 next year, to then earn $48 a share next year. At 25x that number with some discounting, it could trade for $1,000 a share."

Ok, so clearly the big growth rate was just a blip. It was not sustainable as a growth rate. In fact, the company would have been happy to just not shrink in subsequent quarters for a while, until it came up with new swear words and new languages to put on their internationally distributed mugs. So maybe $3 a share was sustainable; $15 was not.

Next year: Klingon.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What are trailing earnings?11 Views

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finance a la shmoop what are trailing earnings here are the trailing earnings

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for whatever dot-com 23 cents 32 cents 41 and 52 cents and a quarter quarter [Trailing earnings figures appear]

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quarter quarter yeah here's where we are on the timeline today we just finished

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the first quarter of the new year to print that lovely 52 cents a share in [Shares printing]

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earnings well the stock of whatever.com is trading at a hundred bucks a share

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and tons of nervous Nellie investors are pulling out their hair over the very [Hair falls on floor]

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high multiple that this stock is trading at so the trailing earnings of whatever

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dot-com were well let's just add him up here in 23 32 41 52 totals a buck 48 [Share prices appear]

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that's a dollar forty eight in trailing earnings so the years trailing earnings

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of the company were a buck 48 and that means that at $100 a share with no cash

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and no net debt to worry about here the company is trading at a hundred divided

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by a dollar forty eight or about sixty seven times earnings there's nothing

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cold cash and no debt so 67 times trailing earnings here is a huge

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multiple it's a multiple of trailing earnings but look at the trend in

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earnings growth the company has stated that it thinks it'll keep growing at [Growth percentage bar chart appears]

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quote about this pace for the foreseeable future

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unquote so if we do a little estimating then forward earnings might see them

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print something like go I don't know 64 cents then 80 cents and 95 cents and a

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buck 12 or something like that well if we add up those subsequent forward [Quarterly earnings appear]

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quarterly earnings numbers we get $3 and 51 cents a share in earnings so wait a

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minute we just came to the conclusion with the nervous Nellie's that this [Stop sign appears]

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stock was so expensive when they were thinking about it as a hundred times

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earning stock but on the projected forward earnings of 3.51 a share not a

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hundred bucks it's trading at 100 divided by three point five one or about

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caterpillar Tractor or coca-cola but whatever dot-com is growing earnings at

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like ten times faster pace than those old stalwart

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companies they're a lot more risk that whatever dot-com misses its earnings

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numbers yes absolutely but if it hits the 3.51 and then goes on to earn oh no

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six bucks and then ten bucks a share in the subsequent years well the hundred [Whatever.com share price on graph]

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dollars a share price here will look like a bargain in the rearview mirror so

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that's what trailing earnings are all about you pick a spot in time and look [Calendar appears]

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at the previous and I'll say four quarters earnings and then you think

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about what multiple of that number of the stock is trading at and then map

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that to future prognostications if the company is really growing this fast well [Whatever.com tree appears]

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then even though it's multiple on trailing earnings might be high while on

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forward earnings it might be low may be a bargain

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just ask Amazon about this one they wrote the book on the trailing earnings [Amazon graph of stock price]

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and guess where you can buy that book

Up Next

Finance: What are normalized earnings?
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Normalized earnings are, more or less, the average of what you typically earn. Picture a bell curve. Zoom in on the middle of it. There you go.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)