Return On Capital Employed Overview: Guardant Health

During Q2, Guardant Health's GH reported sales totaled $66.33 million. Despite a 56.45% in earnings, the company posted a loss of $54.62 million. Guardant Health collected $67.51 million in revenue during Q1, but reported earnings showed a $34.91 million loss.

What Is Return On Capital Employed?

Changes in earnings and sales indicate shifts in Guardant Health’s Return on Capital Employed, a measure of yearly pre-tax profit relative to capital employed by a business. Generally, a higher ROCE suggests successful growth of a company and is a sign of higher earnings per share in the future. In Q2, Guardant Health posted an ROCE of -0.05%.

It is important to keep in mind ROCE evaluates past performance and is not used as a predictive tool. It is a good measure of a company's recent performance, but several factors could affect earnings and sales in the near future.

ROCE is an important metric for the comparison of similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Guardant Health is potentially operating at a higher level of efficiency than other companies in its industry. If the company is generating high profits with its current level of capital, some of that money can be reinvested in more capital which will generally lead to higher returns and earnings per share growth.

For Guardant Health, the return on capital employed ratio shows the current amount of assets may not actually be helping the company achieve higher returns, a note many investors will take into account when making long-term financial decisions.

Q2 Earnings Recap

Guardant Health reported Q2 earnings per share at $-0.57/share, which did not meet analyst predictions of $-0.38/share.