Yahoo Finance If You Had Bought at Home Group (LON:PETS) Stock A Year Ago, You Could Pocket A 94% Gain Today
The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But one can do better than that by picking better than average stocks (as part of a diversified portfolio). For example, the Pets at Home Group Plc (LON:PETS) share price is up 94% in the last year, clearly besting the market return of around 1.7% (not including dividends). If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! However, the longer term returns haven't been so impressive, with the stock up just 7.2% in the last three years.
Check out our latest analysis for at Home Group
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).
Over the last twelve months, at Home Group actually shrank its EPS by 51%.
This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. Indeed, when EPS is declining but the share price is up, it often means the market is considering other factors.
However the year on year revenue growth of 6.9% would help. We do see some companies suppress earnings in order to accelerate revenue growth.
The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
If you are thinking of buying or selling at Home Group stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.
What About Dividends?
When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, at Home Group's TSR for the last year was 103%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that at Home Group has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 103% in the last twelve months. Of course, that includes the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 9.3% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. Before spending more time on at Home Group it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.
We will like at Home Group better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB exchanges.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
