Yahoo Finance The past five years for Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI) investors has not been profitable
In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), since the last five years saw the share price fall 59%. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 17% in the last 90 days.
Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.
View our latest analysis for Pitney Bowes
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).
Pitney Bowes became profitable within the last five years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.
Revenue is actually up 1.8% over the time period. So it seems one might have to take closer look at the fundamentals to understand why the share price languishes. After all, there may be an opportunity.
You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
We know that Pitney Bowes has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Pitney Bowes will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).
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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Pitney Bowes the TSR over the last 5 years was -47%, 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
Pitney Bowes shareholders gained a total return of 20% during the year. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it is certainly better than the yearly loss of about 8% endured over half a decade. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Pitney Bowes better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Pitney Bowes (including 1 which can't be ignored) .
We will like Pitney Bowes better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, 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. 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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