It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. Investors in SCOR SE (EPA:SCR) have tasted that bitter downside in the last year, as the share price dropped 26%. That's disappointing when you consider the market declined 0.3%. Zooming out, the stock is down 24% in the last three years. But it's up 6.5% in the last week. But this could be related to the strong market, with stocks up around 4.1% in the same time.
See our latest analysis for SCOR
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 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 SCOR reported an EPS drop of 59% for the last year. The share price fall of 26% isn't as bad as the reduction in earnings per share. So the market may not be too worried about the EPS figure, at the moment -- or it may have expected earnings to drop faster.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
This free interactive report on SCOR's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 0.3% in the last year, SCOR shareholders lost 26%. 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. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 1.5% per year over half a decade. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand SCOR better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for SCOR you should be aware of.
But note: SCOR 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 FR 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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