Investors can approximate the average market return by buying an index fund. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. That downside risk was realized by Bestway Global Holding Inc. (HKG:3358) shareholders over the last year, as the share price declined 10%. That contrasts poorly with the market return of -2.1%. Bestway Global Holding may have better days ahead, of course; we've only looked at a one year period. The share price has dropped 14% in three months. However, one could argue that the price has been influenced by the general market, which is down 6.7% in the same timeframe.
View our latest analysis for Bestway Global Holding
There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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.
Unfortunately Bestway Global Holding reported an EPS drop of 3.0% for the last year. This reduction in EPS is not as bad as the 10% share price fall. This suggests the EPS fall has made some shareholders are more nervous about the business. The P/E ratio of 8.21 also points to the negative market sentiment.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
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. This free interactive report on Bestway Global Holding's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
What About Dividends?
When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Bestway Global Holding the TSR over the last year was -7.9%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
We doubt Bestway Global Holding shareholders are happy with the loss of 7.9% over twelve months (even including dividends) . That falls short of the market, which lost 2.1%. That's disappointing, but it's worth keeping in mind that the market-wide selling wouldn't have helped. Notably, the loss over the last year isn't as bad as the 14% drop in the last three months. So it seems like some holders have been dumping the stock of late - and that's not bullish. Investors who like to make money usually check up on insider purchases, such as the price paid, and total amount bought. You can find out about the insider purchases of Bestway Global Holding by clicking this link.