Optimism for Mayville Engineering Company (NYSE:MEC) has grown this past week, despite one-year decline in earnings

The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. To wit, the Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. (NYSE:MEC) share price is 44% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market return of around 25% (not including dividends) in the same period. That's a solid performance by our standards! Unfortunately the longer term returns are not so good, with the stock falling 9.3% in the last three years.

Since the stock has added US$33m to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

See our latest analysis for Mayville Engineering Company

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

Over the last twelve months, Mayville Engineering Company actually shrank its EPS by 51%.

Given the share price gain, we doubt the market is measuring progress with 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.

However the year on year revenue growth of 11% would help. We do see some companies suppress earnings in order to accelerate revenue growth.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Mayville Engineering Company has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 44% in the last twelve months. That certainly beats the loss of about 2% per year over the last half decade. This makes us a little wary, but the business might have turned around its fortunes. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Mayville Engineering Company you should be aware of, and 1 of them can't be ignored.

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 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.