As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But if you try your hand at stock picking, your risk returning less than the market. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term StealthGas Inc. (NASDAQ:GASS) shareholders, since the share price is down 31% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 64%. It's down 1.1% in the last seven days.

See our latest analysis for StealthGas

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...' By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

StealthGas became profitable within the last five years. We would usually expect to see the share price rise as a result. So it's worth looking at other metrics to try to understand the share price move.

Arguably the revenue decline of 4.8% per year has people thinking StealthGas is shrinking. After all, if revenue keeps shrinking, it may be difficult to find earnings growth in the future.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. If you are thinking of buying or selling StealthGas stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

A Different Perspective

StealthGas shareholders gained a total return of 3.0% during the year. But that return falls short of the market. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 4% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. 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. Even so, be aware that StealthGas is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is significant...

StealthGas is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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