Italian Exhibition Group's (BIT:IEG) Shareholders Are Down 52% On Their Shares

Italian Exhibition Group S.p.A. (BIT:IEG) shareholders will doubtless be very grateful to see the share price up 30% in the last quarter. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last year have been disappointing. Like an arid lake in a warming world, shareholder value has evaporated, with the share price down 52% in that time. It's not that amazing to see a bounce after a drop like that. It may be that the fall was an overreaction.

View our latest analysis for Italian Exhibition Group

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 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.

Unfortunately Italian Exhibition Group reported an EPS drop of 43% for the last year. This proportional reduction in earnings per share isn't far from the 52% decrease in the share price. Given the lower EPS we might have expected investors to lose confidence in the stock, but that doesn't seemed to have happened. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

This free interactive report on Italian Exhibition Group's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Italian Exhibition Group shareholders are down 52% for the year, even worse than the market loss of 8.5%. There's no doubt that's a disappointment, but the stock may well have fared better in a stronger market. Putting aside the last twelve months, it's good to see the share price has rebounded by 30%, in the last ninety days. Let's just hope this isn't the widely-feared 'dead cat bounce' (which would indicate further declines to come). It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Italian Exhibition Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 4 warning signs for Italian Exhibition Group (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about.

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 IT 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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