Daily Archives: July 25, 2021

It is hard to get excited after looking at American Public Education's (NASDAQ:APEI) recent performance, when its stock has declined 12% over the past three months. It is possible that the markets have ignored the company's differing financials and decided to lean-in to the negative sentiment. Stock prices are usually driven by a companys financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. Specifically, we decided to study American Public Education's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for American Public Education

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for American Public Education is:

6.1% = US$25m US$401m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.06 in profit.

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

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At first glance, American Public Education's ROE doesn't look very promising. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 9.8%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. For this reason, American Public Education's five year net income decline of 12% is not surprising given its lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

That being said, we compared American Public Education's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 14% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. Its important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is American Public Education fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Overall, we have mixed feelings about American Public Education. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the earnings growth. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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Are American Public Education, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:APEI) Mixed Financials The Reason For Its Gloomy Performance on The Stock Market? - Yahoo Finance

WASHINGTON Certainties may be rare in Washington these days, but blowups between Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Biden, have become one of the few reliable features of life inside the Beltway, right up there with the relentless humidity of summer.

That much was made clear, once again, during a hearing of the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday, during which the two sparred over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Paul accused Fauci of misrepresenting, in earlier testimony, the nature of U.S. government funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where some believe the virus originated as the result of a lab experiment gone awry. He ended his characteristically long question by reminding Fauci that it is a crime to lie to Congress.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., questions Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday. (J. Scott Applewhite, Pool via AP)

Fauci did not take to the suggestion kindly. I have not lied before the Congress, the veteran government immunologist responded. He rejected Pauls offer to retract his earlier testimony about U.S. funding of viral research into the pandemics shadowy beginnings.

Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, Fauci continued. And I want to say that officially.

Never one for niceties, Paul charged that Fauci was trying to obscure responsibility for the devastation the coronavirus has caused around the world.

From there, unsurprisingly, the tone escalated. I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, Fauci snarled back at the senator.

There was shouting and gesticulating, with lots of heat but little light. Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., tried to intervene, to little effect.

Fauci testifies at Tuesday's hearing. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Pool via via Getty Images)

As evidence of his allegation, Paul cited a scientific research paper into bat viruses by a Wuhan researcher. The research in question had been partially supported by the National Institutes of Health. (In addition to serving as an adviser to the White House, Fauci is head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the NIH.)

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Fauci in turn told Paul, who is an ophthalmologist by training, that he had failed to understand the research, adding that it was molecularly impossible for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to have conducted the kind of research that would have led to the advent of SARS-CoV-2.

Paul has previously said that the NIH did not permit Chinese laboratories to use funds from the United States for gain-of-function research, which boosts viruses in order to study their behavior.

Conservatives have seized on Faucis email exchanges with other scientists which were made public as part of a Freedom of Information Act request to suggest he is hiding the complicity of the U.S. medical establishment. There is no evidence of such complicity, or of a cover-up, but the lack of cooperation from Beijing has allowed conspiracy theories about Fauci and others to proliferate.

If anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you, Fauci said near the end of their terse exchange, which, as he himself noted, fell into a somewhat predictable pattern.

Fauci responds in a terse exchange with Paul on Tuesday. (J. Scott Applewhite/Pool via AP)

Indeed, Fauci and Paul were not exactly friends before Tuesdays exchange. At a hearing in June 2020, Paul challenged Fauci on school closures, although Fauci had said he supported reopening schools for in-person instruction, provided proper preventive measures like mask wearing were taken.

Before answering the senator on that occasion, Fauci offered what appeared to be a good-natured smile, saying he was in lock agreement about school reopening.

The exchanges between them would grow more acrimonious, with ever fewer agreements and smiles. That may have had to do with conservatives growing hostility toward Fauci, who ran afoul of President Donald Trump, despite having served as his adviser.

In March 2021, Fauci and Paul argued at a Senate hearing on face masks, which had by then become the subject of an intense culture war but which were also widely accepted as a fact of pandemic life by most Americans. Paul wondered why Fauci and others who were vaccinated parade around in two masks for show, since vaccinated people appear to be at exceptionally low risk for either contracting or spreading the coronavirus.

I totally disagree with you, Fauci responded. He then went on a morning news show and described Paul as dead wrongon this point.

Paul in the heated exchange Tuesday. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times/Pool via AP)

Several weeks later, Paul confronted Fauci with the issue at the heart of Tuesdays exchange: whether the NIH inadvertently funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab that has been at the center of scrutiny over the origin of the pandemic. Such research is necessary, scientists say, to see how viruses evolve. But if that research is conducted in a laboratory with lax biosecurity standards, the danger of the virus escaping could increase substantially.

During that encounter, Fauci said Pauls accusation of potential impropriety was entirely and completely incorrect."

Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins have both said the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research. The funding went through an intermediary called EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based not-for-profit organization whose founder, Dr. Peter Daszak, has a close relationship with virologists in Wuhan and has vigorously defended them against accusations of wrongdoing.

Although conservatives like Paul have long championed the hypothesis that the virus escaped from the laboratory, the notion that human error is responsible for the coronavirus has gained traction with the American public.

President Biden has instructed the U.S. intelligence community to produce an assessment of how the pandemic originated. That assessment is expected by summers end.

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times /Pool via AP

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Fauci to Rand Paul: 'If anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you' - Yahoo News

TOKYO On Friday, July 23, 2021, the Olympics will begin with reference after reference to a year that is, well, not 2021.

In fact, throughout Tokyo, 2020 is everywhere. Its on airport signs and road signs and flags, on uniforms and photographer bibs and lanyards, on taxis and Games-related vehicles and more. Even the WiFi network on an Olympics shuttle bus is named Sushi2020.

Because the 2021 Olympics are, officially, the 2020 Olympics. But why?

The answer, of course, stems from the postponement of the Games last March, from 2020 to 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, organizers agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.

And that decision, for the most part, was a commercial decision.

There are many reasons, a Tokyo organizing committee source told Yahoo Sports. One of them, he said, was that last year in March, torches, medals, other branding items, and merchandise were already being made using the name Tokyo 2020 and a name change would have meant additional costs.

In other words, Olympic organizers had already committed millions upon millions of dollars to the "Tokyo 2020" brand. They were ready to sell physical representations of it t-shirts, flags, mascot stuffed animals, souvenirs of all kinds. They were also ready to sell it intangibly, backed by full-fledged marketing campaigns developed over multiple years.

National Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics will be held, is branded with "Tokyo 2020" like everywhere else. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

The primary asset the IOC and Tokyo Organizing Committee sells is its intellectual property and the corresponding brand equity associated with the marks, logos, designations, symbols, etc., explained Michael Lynch, a veteran sports marketer who formerly managed Visas sponsorship of the Games. All that Olympic IP is branded 2020, including IOC and [organizing committee] creative, sponsor creative, advertising creative, promotional creative, licensed merchandise, tickets, on-site signage, events, you name it, all about to hit the market. It would be an enormous and unnecessary expense for all of this Olympic IP to be changed.

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And as Lynch mentioned, the expense wouldnt just hit organizers. It would hit their broadcast partners, their sponsors, anybody with a brand strategy related to the Olympics.

Some of them have developed creative rebrands, with logos that dub these the 202One Olympics, or that shape the inside of the second zero in 2020 as a 1.

(USA Swimming)

But the official branding remained Tokyo 2020, as it has been ever since the IOC awarded these Games to the Japanese capital way back on Sept. 7, 2013. Most Games stakeholders welcomed the decision to stick with the original name.

At the time of the decision, however, organizers hoped that 2021 would bring normalcy. That fans from around the globe would still travel to Tokyo to celebrate the resilience of humankind and to buy merch. Lots of it. Everything from clothing to chopsticks to umbrellas with the official Tokyo 2020 marks.

It had the potential to generate some $100 million, and much of it had already been manufactured. So organizers and licensed retailers stashed it away in warehouses, hoping it would fly off shelves come summer 2021.

Instead, they face massive losses because no fans will attend the Games at all. No tourists will descend on Tokyo. No locals will mill about outside stadiums and arenas, in bustling downtown areas and by Tokyo Bay. Many of the dozens of official merchandise shops throughout the host city have either closed or welcomed very few visitors. This aspect of the Tokyo 2020 strategy has been undone by the virus.

There was once a thought among some experts that the uniqueness of these Games, the first ever postponed, would make all that merchandise sellable as valuable collectors items. But the Olympics became so unpopular in Japan, and so fraught with controversy, that the brand likely has become irreversibly tarnished. Toyota recently pulled all its Japanese TV advertisements related to the Games.

Still, though, long before COVID, thousands of volunteer shirts and banners and other non-retail items were designed and made as if the 2020 Olympics were going to happen in 2020. And so they are, despite what calendars might tell you, still the 2020 Olympics.

More Olympics coverage from Yahoo Sports:

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Mystery Solved: Why the 2021 Olympics are still called the Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Yahoo Sports

The board of ACNB Corporation (NASDAQ:ACNB) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 15th of September, with investors receiving US$0.25 per share. The dividend yield will be 3.6% based on this payment which is still above the industry average.

View our latest analysis for ACNB

If the payments aren't sustainable, a high yield for a few years won't matter that much. However, prior to this announcement, ACNB's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

Over the next year, EPS could expand by 11.3% if recent trends continue. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 31% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.

historic-dividend

The company has a sustained record of paying dividends with very little fluctuation. Since 2011, the dividend has gone from US$0.76 to US$1.00. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 2.8% over that duration. While the consistency in the dividend payments is impressive, we think the relatively slow rate of growth is less attractive.

Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. We are encouraged to see that ACNB has grown earnings per share at 11% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio and decent growth suggests that the company is reinvesting well, and it also has plenty of room to increase the dividend over time.

Overall, we like to see the dividend staying consistent, and we think ACNB might even raise payments in the future. Distributions are quite easily covered by earnings, which are also being converted to cash flows. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Now, if you want to look closer, it would be worth checking out our free research on ACNB management tenure, salary, and performance. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of strong dividend payers.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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ACNB (NASDAQ:ACNB) Has Re-Affirmed Its Dividend Of US$0.25 - Yahoo Finance