Yahoo Finance Can You Imagine How Codorus Valley Bancorp's (NASDAQ:CVLY) Shareholders Feel About The 36% Share Price Increase?
There's no doubt that investing in the stock market is a truly brilliant way to build wealth. But if you choose that path, you're going to buy some stocks that fall short of the market. For example, the Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY), share price is up over the last year, but its gain of 36% trails the market return. Zooming out, the stock is actually down 27% in the last three years.
See our latest analysis for Codorus Valley Bancorp
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.
During the last year, Codorus Valley Bancorp actually saw its earnings per share drop 54%.
So we don't think that investors are paying too much attention to EPS. Therefore, it seems likely that investors are putting more weight on metrics other than EPS, at the moment.
Unfortunately Codorus Valley Bancorp's fell 18% over twelve months. So using a snapshot of key business metrics doesn't give us a good picture of why the market is bidding up the stock.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. This free interactive report on Codorus Valley Bancorp's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Codorus Valley Bancorp's TSR for the last year was 41%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
Codorus Valley Bancorp provided a TSR of 41% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 5% per year over five year. This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Codorus Valley Bancorp better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Codorus Valley Bancorp , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.
Codorus Valley Bancorp is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.
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. 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.
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