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The Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) Share Price Has Gained 17% And Shareholders Are Hoping For More
If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) share price is up 17% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. The last year has been disappointing, with the stock price down 12% in that time.
See our latest analysis for Aramark
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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.
Aramark's earnings per share are down 11% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.
The strong decline in earnings per share suggests the market isn't using EPS to judge the company. The falling EPS doesn't correlate with the climbing share price, so it's worth taking a look at other metrics.
We doubt the modest 1.2% dividend yield is attracting many buyers to the stock. The revenue growth of 1.5% per year hardly seems impressive. So it seems one might have to take closer look at earnings and revenue trends to see how they might influence the share price.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have 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. You can see what analysts are predicting for Aramark in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.
What About Dividends?
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Aramark the TSR over the last 5 years was 24%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
Aramark shareholders are down 11% 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 4% 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. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Aramark you should be aware of, and 1 of them shouldn't be ignored.
Aramark is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider 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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What are the risks and opportunities for Aramark?
Aramark provides food, facilities, and uniform services to education, healthcare, business and industry, sports, leisure, and corrections clients in the United States and internationally.
Rewards
Earnings are forecast to grow 24.68% per year
Earnings grew by 613.9% over the past year
Risks
Interest payments are not well covered by earnings
Large one-off items impacting financial results
Further research on
Aramark
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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About NYSE:ARMK
Aramark
Aramark provides food, facilities, and uniform services to education, healthcare, business and industry, sports, leisure, and corrections clients in the United States and internationally.
Moderate growth potential with acceptable track record.
