Yahoo Finance Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU) stock performs better than its underlying earnings growth over last three years
The most you can lose on any stock (assuming you don't use leverage) is 100% of your money. But in contrast you can make much more than 100% if the company does well. To wit, the Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU) share price has flown 212% in the last three years. How nice for those who held the stock! It's also up 23% in about a month. This could be related to the recent financial results that were recently released - you could check the most recent data by reading our company report.
After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.
View our latest analysis for Peabody Energy
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 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 three years of share price growth, Peabody Energy moved from a loss to profitability. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
It is of course excellent to see how Peabody Energy has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that Peabody Energy has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 188% in the last twelve months. That certainly beats the loss of about 0.3% per year over the last half decade. We generally put more weight on the long term performance over the short term, but the recent improvement could hint at a (positive) inflection point within the business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Peabody Energy better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Peabody Energy (2 make us uncomfortable!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
But note: Peabody Energy may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).
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.
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