Investors Who Bought Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC) Shares A Year Ago Are Now Up 48%

One way to deal with stock volatility is to ensure you have a properly diverse portfolio. But if you're going to beat the market overall, you need to have individual stocks that outperform. Edgewell Personal Care Company (NYSE:EPC) has done well over the last year, with the stock price up 48% beating the market return of 44% (not including dividends). The longer term returns have not been as good, with the stock price only 2.9% higher than it was three years ago.

See our latest analysis for Edgewell Personal Care

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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.

Edgewell Personal Care went from making a loss to reporting a profit, in the last year.

The result looks like a strong improvement to us, so we're not surprised the market likes the growth. Inflection points like this can be a great time to take a closer look at a company.

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

earnings-per-share-growth
earnings-per-share-growth

We know that Edgewell Personal Care has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.

A Different Perspective

Edgewell Personal Care's TSR for the year was broadly in line with the market average, at 50%. To take a positive view, the gain is pleasing, and it sure beats annualized TSR loss of 8%, which was endured over half a decade. While 'turnarounds seldom turn' there are green shoots for Edgewell Personal Care. 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. Take risks, for example - Edgewell Personal Care has 4 warning signs (and 1 which is concerning) we think you should know about.

But note: Edgewell Personal Care may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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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