Yahoo Finance Such Is Life: How Veritiv (NYSE:VRTV) Shareholders Saw Their Shares Drop 61%
Veritiv Corporation (NYSE:VRTV) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 13% in the last month. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last three years have been disappointing. In that time, the share price dropped 61%. So the improvement may be a real relief to some. Perhaps the company has turned over a new leaf.
View our latest analysis for Veritiv
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.
Veritiv has made a profit in the past. On the other hand, it reported a trailing twelve months loss, suggesting it isn't reliably profitable. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.
The company has kept revenue pretty healthy over the last three years, so we doubt that explains the falling share price. There doesn't seem to be any clear correlation between the fundamental business metrics and the share price. That could mean that the stock was previously overrated, or it could spell opportunity now.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
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 report showing analyst forecasts should help you form a view on Veritiv
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 4.2% in the last year, Veritiv shareholders lost 58%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 16% per year over five years. We realise that Buffett has said investors should 'buy when there is blood on the streets', but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality businesses. If you want to research this stock further, the data on insider buying is an obvious place to start. You can click here to see who has been buying shares - and the price they paid.
There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.
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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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
