Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. Firstly, we’d want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Put simply, these types of businesses are compounding machines, meaning they are continually reinvesting their earnings at ever-higher rates of return. With that in mind, we’ve noticed some promising trends at Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC) so let’s look a bit deeper.
If you haven’t worked with ROCE before, it measures the ‘return’ (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Marathon Petroleum is:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets – Current Liabilities)
0.078 = US$5.0b ÷ (US$83b – US$19b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2025).
Thus, Marathon Petroleum has an ROCE of 7.8%. On its own, that’s a low figure but it’s around the 8.7% average generated by the Oil and Gas industry.
Check out our latest analysis for Marathon Petroleum
NYSE:MPC Return on Capital Employed January 17th 2026
In the above chart we have measured Marathon Petroleum’s prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you’d like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Marathon Petroleum .
Shareholders will be relieved that Marathon Petroleum has broken into profitability. The company now earns 7.8% on its capital, because five years ago it was incurring losses. Interestingly, the capital employed by the business has remained relatively flat, so these higher returns are either from prior investments paying off or increased efficiencies. That being said, while an increase in efficiency is no doubt appealing, it’d be helpful to know if the company does have any investment plans going forward. So if you’re looking for high growth, you’ll want to see a business’s capital employed also increasing.
As discussed above, Marathon Petroleum appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. And with the stock having performed exceptionally well over the last five years, these patterns are being accounted for by investors. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it’s worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist.