Yahoo Finance Globe Life (NYSE:GL) sheds 4.8% this week, as yearly returns fall more in line with earnings growth
When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. Furthermore, you'd generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Globe Life Inc. (NYSE:GL) share price is up 19% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Unfortunately the share price is down 12% in the last year.
Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 4.8%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.
See our latest analysis for Globe Life
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 five years of share price growth, Globe Life achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 10% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 4% average annual increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market has become relatively pessimistic about the company.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
Dive deeper into Globe Life's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Globe Life's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Globe Life's TSR for the last 5 years was 24%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
While it's never nice to take a loss, Globe Life shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 11% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 16%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 4%, each year, over five years. In the best case scenario the last year is just a temporary blip on the journey to a brighter future. 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. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Globe Life that you should be aware of.
Of course Globe Life may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.
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.
