Announcing: Healthia (ASX:HLA) Stock Increased An Energizing 108% In The Last Year

Unless you borrow money to invest, the potential losses are limited. On the other hand, if you find a high quality business to buy (at the right price) you can more than double your money! For example, the Healthia Limited (ASX:HLA) share price had more than doubled in just one year - up 108%. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 34% gain in the last three months. This could be related to the recent financial results, released recently - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report. Healthia hasn't been listed for long, so it's still not clear if it is a long term winner.

See our latest analysis for Healthia

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).

During the last year Healthia saw its earnings per share (EPS) increase strongly. This remarkable growth rate may not be sustainable, but it is still impressive. We are not surprised the share price is up. We're real advocates of letting inflection points like this guide our research as stock pickers.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

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 interactive report on Healthia'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. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, Healthia's TSR for the last year was 115%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Healthia shareholders have gained 115% over the last year, including dividends. And the share price momentum remains respectable, with a gain of 34% in the last three months. Demand for the stock from multiple parties is pushing the price higher; it could be that word is getting out about its virtues as a business. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Healthia you should be aware of, and 1 of them is potentially serious.

Healthia is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on AU exchanges.

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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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