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Onex Corporation (TSE:ONEX) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 22% in the last quarter. But that doesn't help the fact that the three year return is less impressive. After all, the share price is down 19% in the last three years, significantly under-performing the market.
View our latest analysis for Onex
In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. 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).
Onex 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.
The modest 0.5% dividend yield is unlikely to be guiding the market view of the stock. Arguably the revenue decline of 72% per year has people thinking Onex is shrinking. And that's not surprising, since it seems unlikely that EPS growth can continue for long in the absence of revenue growth.
The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 4.8% in the last year, Onex shareholders lost 13% (even including dividends). Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 2% per year over five years. 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Onex better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Onex .
Onex is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.