What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? In a perfect world, we’d like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. If you see this, it typically means it’s a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in Marathon Petroleum’s (NYSE:MPC) returns on capital, so let’s have a look.

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Just to clarify if you’re unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Marathon Petroleum:

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).

So, Marathon Petroleum has an ROCE of 7.8%. On its own, that’s a low figure but it’s around the 9.0% average generated by the Oil and Gas industry.

View our latest analysis for Marathon Petroleum

roce

NYSE:MPC Return on Capital Employed November 8th 2025

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Marathon Petroleum compares to its prior returns on capital, but there’s only so much you can tell from the past. If you’re interested, you can view the analysts predictions in 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. Because in the end, a business can only get so efficient.

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. Therefore, we think it would be worth your time to check if these trends are going to continue.

If you want to continue researching Marathon Petroleum, you might be interested to know about the 2 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

While Marathon Petroleum may not currently earn the highest returns, we’ve compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.