Reflecting on M&G's (LON:MNG) Share Price Returns Over The Last Year
While not a mind-blowing move, it is good to see that the M&G plc (LON:MNG) share price has gained 17% in the last three months. But in truth the last year hasn't been good for the share price. After all, the share price is down 23% in the last year, significantly under-performing the market.
Check out our latest analysis for M&G
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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).
Unfortunately M&G reported an EPS drop of 28% for the last year. This fall in the EPS is significantly worse than the 23% the share price fall. So despite the weak per-share profits, some investors are probably relieved the situation wasn't more difficult.
The image below shows how EPS has 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. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. This free interactive report on M&G's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. As it happens, M&G's TSR for the last year was -10%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
We doubt M&G shareholders are happy with the loss of 10% over twelve months (even including dividends). That falls short of the market, which lost 4.3%. That's disappointing, but it's worth keeping in mind that the market-wide selling wouldn't have helped. It's great to see a nice little 17% rebound in the last three months. This could just be a bounce because the selling was too aggressive, but fingers crossed it's the start of a new trend. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for M&G (of which 2 make us uncomfortable!) you should know about.
M&G is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB 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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