Yahoo Finance Investors in Celtic (LON:CCP) have unfortunately lost 33% over the last three years
As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But if you try your hand at stock picking, your risk returning less than the market. We regret to report that long term Celtic plc (LON:CCP) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 33% in three years, versus a market decline of about 6.0%. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 20% in the last three months.
Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.
View our latest analysis for Celtic
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.
Celtic became profitable within the last five years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. So given the share price is down it's worth checking some other metrics too.
We think that the revenue decline over three years, at a rate of 11% per year, probably had some shareholders looking to sell. After all, if revenue keeps shrinking, it may be difficult to find earnings growth in the future.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We know that Celtic has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? If you are thinking of buying or selling Celtic stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.
A Different Perspective
While it's never nice to take a loss, Celtic shareholders can take comfort that their trailing twelve month loss of 0.9% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 2.9%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 2%, each year, over five years. It could be that the business is just facing some short term problems, but shareholders should keep a close eye on the fundamentals. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Celtic (including 1 which shouldn't be ignored) .
If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB exchanges.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
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