If You Had Bought Home Bancorp's (NASDAQ:HBCP) Shares Three Years Ago You Would Be Down 42%

As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But if you try your hand at stock picking, your risk returning less than the market. We regret to report that long term Home Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBCP) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 42% in three years, versus a market return of about 47%. The more recent news is of little comfort, with the share price down 36% in a year. More recently, the share price has dropped a further 8.1% in a month. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

View our latest analysis for Home Bancorp

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.

Home Bancorp saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 8.5% per year, over the last three years. The share price decline of 17% is actually steeper than the EPS slippage. So it seems the market was too confident about the business, in the past. The less favorable sentiment is reflected in its current P/E ratio of 11.67.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. This free interactive report on Home Bancorp'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. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Home Bancorp the TSR over the last 3 years was -38%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

Home Bancorp shareholders are down 34% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 24%. 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 0.6% per year over half a decade. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Home Bancorp you should know about.

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do 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 US 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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