摩根斯坦利资管部深度洞察系列之ROIC妙用:The research shows that those companies that sustained high ROICs and high sales growth generated much higher total shareholder returns than companies with low returns and growth.The ROIC calculation is meant to provide insight into how efficiently a company uses its operating capital. An assessment of management’s capital allocation skills focuses on how the company allocates its resources and what the prospective returns from those actions may look like.ROIC is a snapshot in time. But investors should care a great deal about how ROIC will change over time. We can use the tools we have to measure return on incremental invested capital (ROIIC). Rising ROIICs pull aggregate ROICs up. That said, a study of base rates shows that ROIC is, in the aggregate, subject to regression toward the mean. That implies that extreme good or bad outcomes will be followed by outcomes with an expected value closer to the average. Investors should always keep both ideas in mind. Look for increasing returns while understanding that achieving and sustaining high returns is rare.ROIC can be broken down into a measure of margins, or profitability per unit (NOPAT/Sales), and capital efficiency (Sales/Invested capital). Attractive ROICs for companies pursuing a differentiation strategy come via high margins. Similarly good ROICs for companies following a cost leadership strategy are the result of above-average capital efficiency. A decomposition of ROIC can provide concrete clues about a company’s strategy and serve as a guide for strategic analysis.