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 Mesa Air Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MESA) shareholders, since the share price is down 34% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 82%. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 24% in the last 90 days.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

View our latest analysis for Mesa Air Group

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.

Mesa Air Group saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 30% per year, over the last three years. This fall in the EPS is worse than the 13% compound annual share price fall. So the market may not be too worried about the EPS figure, at the moment -- or it may have previously priced some of the drop in.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

A Different Perspective

The last twelve months weren't great for Mesa Air Group shares, which cost holders 13%, while the market was up about 15%. Of course the long term matters more than the short term, and even great stocks will sometimes have a poor year. The three-year loss of 10% per year isn't as bad as the last twelve months, suggesting that the company has not been able to convince the market it has solved its problems. Although Baron Rothschild famously said to "buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own", he also focusses on high quality stocks with solid prospects. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Mesa Air Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Mesa Air Group you should be aware of.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

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.