Investors who have held Gascogne (EPA:ALBI) over the last year have watched its earnings decline along with their investment

This week we saw the Gascogne SA (EPA:ALBI) share price climb by 17%. But in truth the last year hasn't been good for the share price. In fact the stock is down 12% in the last year, well below the market return.

The recent uptick of 17% could be a positive sign of things to come, so let's take a look at historical fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for Gascogne

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 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.

Unhappily, Gascogne had to report a 47% decline in EPS over the last year. This fall in the EPS is significantly worse than the 12% the share price fall. 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 company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

This free interactive report on Gascogne'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 8.2% in the last year, Gascogne shareholders lost 12%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 0.6% per year over five years. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Gascogne better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Gascogne (including 1 which is concerning) .

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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

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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.