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Statistically speaking, long term investing is a profitable endeavour. But unfortunately, some companies simply don't succeed. Zooming in on an example, the Edgewell Personal Care Company (NYSE:EPC) share price dropped 74% in the last half decade. That's not a lot of fun for true believers. And it's not just long term holders hurting, because the stock is down 35% in the last year. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 29% in the last 90 days.
View our latest analysis for Edgewell Personal Care
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).
During five years of share price growth, Edgewell Personal Care moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.
Arguably, the revenue drop of 7.2% a year for half a decade suggests that the company can't grow in the long term. This has probably encouraged some shareholders to sell down the stock.
You can see how revenue and earnings have changed over time in the image below, (click on the chart to see cashflow).
It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts
What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?
We'd be remiss not to mention the difference between Edgewell Personal Care's total shareholder return (TSR) and its 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. Edgewell Personal Care's TSR of was a loss of 65% for the 5 years. That wasn't as bad as its share price return, because it has paid dividends.
A Different Perspective
Investors in Edgewell Personal Care had a tough year, with a total loss of 35%, against a market gain of about 2.8%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 19% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. If you want to research this stock further, the data on insider buying is an obvious place to start. You can click here to see who has been buying shares - and the price they paid.