If You Had Bought A.F.W (KOSDAQ:312610) Stock A Year Ago, You Could Pocket A 68% Gain Today

These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But you can significantly boost your returns by picking above-average stocks. For example, the A.F.W Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ:312610) share price is up 68% in the last year, clearly besting the market return of around 50% (not including dividends). If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! A.F.W hasn't been listed for long, so it's still not clear if it is a long term winner.

View our latest analysis for A.F.W

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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.

During the last year, A.F.W actually saw its earnings per share drop 61%.

So we don't think that investors are paying too much attention to EPS. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

Unfortunately A.F.W's fell 43% over twelve months. So using a snapshot of key business metrics doesn't give us a good picture of why the market is bidding up the stock.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

Take a more thorough look at A.F.W's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

A Different Perspective

A.F.W boasts a total shareholder return of 69% for the last year. A substantial portion of that gain has come in the last three months, with the stock up 70% in that time. This suggests the company is continuing to win over new investors. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand A.F.W better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 3 warning signs with A.F.W (at least 1 which is a bit unpleasant) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

But note: A.F.W 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 KR 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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