Guide · Profitability
ROA on B3 stocks: how productive a company's assets are
The ROA (return on assets) answers a single question: out of everything the company holds in cash, inventory, plant and receivables, how much profit can it squeeze out? It measures asset productivity — and, unlike ROE, it is not inflated by debt.
The math
The numerator is net income for the year. The denominator is average total assets — the mean of assets at the start and the end of the period, so a company that grows sharply mid-year isn't distorted. The result is a percentage: how much profit each unit of assets generated.
What it tells you — and what ROE hides
ROA looks at the whole asset base, financed by debt and by equity. That's why it measures the operating efficiency of the business regardless of how it was funded. ROE, by contrast, divides profit by shareholders' equity alone — and rises whenever the company swaps equity for debt.
Real B3 examples (2025)
Notice how the ROA/ROE pair tells the financing story:
| Ticker | Company | ROA | ROE | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ODPV3 | Odontoprev | 29% | 46% | asset-light, very high productivity |
| LEVE3 | Mahle Metal Leve | 16% | 75% | strong ROE, but leverage-driven |
| WEGE3 | WEG | 16% | 32% | productive business, low leverage |
| GRND3 | Grendene | 14% | 18% | almost debt-free — ROA ≈ ROE |
| VALE3 | Vale | 2% | 7% | very heavy assets, low return per unit |
LEVE3 and GRND3 have similar ROA (16% and 14%) but very different ROE (75% vs 18%): it's Mahle's debt that opens that gap. VALE3 shows the other extreme — a miner needs an enormous asset base for each unit of profit, so its ROA is naturally low. Always compare within the sector.
The trap — the one-off gain
ROA uses net income, and net income is the easiest figure to inflate in a single year. Watch out for:
- Non-recurring gains — an asset sale, a provision reversal, an extraordinary tax credit. They land in net income and push a single year's ROA up without the business becoming any more productive.
- Cross-sector comparison. A bank, a retailer and a miner have asset bases of completely different natures. ROA only compares apples to apples within the same sector.
- A freshly acquired intangible. A large acquisition suddenly swells the denominator and drags ROA down for a year or two, even with operations intact.
That's why the number alone isn't enough: look at the historical series and be suspicious of the year that stands out.
How Dados B3 helps
ROA comes with its source CVM account — net income and average total assets, piece by piece, so you can check whether a given year had anything out of place. See the math at /metodologia/roa and the cross-company comparison at /ranking.