Wabash National (NYSE:WNC investor one-year losses grow to 37% as the stock sheds US$53m this past week

It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. While individual stocks can be big winners, plenty more fail to generate satisfactory returns. Unfortunately the Wabash National Corporation (NYSE:WNC) share price slid 38% over twelve months. That's well below the market return of 26%. Longer term shareholders haven't suffered as badly, since the stock is down a comparatively less painful 22% in three years.

Since Wabash National has shed US$53m from its value in the past 7 days, let's see if the longer term decline has been driven by the business' economics.

View our latest analysis for Wabash National

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 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.

During the last year Wabash National saw its earnings per share drop below zero. While this may prove temporary, we'd consider it a negative, so it doesn't surprise us that the stock price is down. We hope for shareholders' sake that the company becomes profitable again soon.

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

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

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 26% in the last year, Wabash National shareholders lost 37% (even including dividends). 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 8% per year over half a decade. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Wabash National better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Wabash National you should be aware of.

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps 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.