Yahoo Finance Investors in Apple Hospitality REIT (NYSE:APLE) have made a return of 12% over the past year
The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. For example, the Apple Hospitality REIT, Inc. (NYSE:APLE) share price is up 12% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market decline of around 9.0% (not including dividends). That's a solid performance by our standards! The longer term returns have not been as good, with the stock price only 7.1% higher than it was three years ago.
Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.
Check out our latest analysis for Apple Hospitality REIT
To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.
During the last year Apple Hospitality REIT grew its earnings per share, moving from a loss to a profit.
When a company has just transitioned to profitability, earnings per share growth is not always the best way to look at the share price action.
However the year on year revenue growth of 55% would help. Many businesses do go through a phase where they have to forgo some profits to drive business development, and sometimes its for the best.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts
A Different Perspective
We're pleased to report that Apple Hospitality REIT shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 12% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 3% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Apple Hospitality REIT you should be aware of, and 1 of them makes us a bit uncomfortable.
There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.
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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.
