The five-year decline in earnings for Triumph Financial NASDAQ:TFIN) isn't encouraging, but shareholders are still up 93% over that period

It hasn't been the best quarter for Triumph Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:TFIN) shareholders, since the share price has fallen 16% in that time. But at least the stock is up over the last five years. In that time, it is up 93%, which isn't bad, but is below the market return of 98%.

Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 16%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.

See our latest analysis for Triumph Financial

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Triumph Financial's earnings per share are down 25% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. 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.

In contrast revenue growth of 7.4% per year is probably viewed as evidence that Triumph Financial is growing, a real positive. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth.

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

This free interactive report on Triumph Financial's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Triumph Financial provided a TSR of 4.4% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. It's probably a good sign that the company has an even better long term track record, having provided shareholders with an annual TSR of 14% over five years. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Triumph Financial better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Triumph Financial is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

We will like Triumph Financial better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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