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The simplest way to benefit from a rising market is to buy an index fund. While individual stocks can be big winners, plenty more fail to generate satisfactory returns. For example, the Lancaster Colony Corporation (NASDAQ:LANC) share price is down 32% in the last year. That's disappointing when you consider the market declined 17%. However, the longer term returns haven't been so bad, with the stock down 11% in the last three years. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 14% in the last 90 days. But this could be related to the weak market, which is down 15% in the same period.
The recent uptick of 6.5% could be a positive sign of things to come, so let's take a lot at historical fundamentals.
View our latest analysis for Lancaster Colony
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 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.
Unhappily, Lancaster Colony had to report a 35% decline in EPS over the last year. This proportional reduction in earnings per share isn't far from the 32% decrease in the share price. So it seems that the market sentiment has not changed much, despite the weak results. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.
The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Lancaster Colony's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
A Different Perspective
While the broader market lost about 17% in the twelve months, Lancaster Colony shareholders did even worse, losing 31% (even including dividends). However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 3%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Lancaster Colony better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Lancaster Colony (including 1 which is a bit unpleasant) .