Carnival Corporation & (NYSE:CCL) shareholder returns have been notable, earning 59% in 1 year

These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. For example, the Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) share price is up 59% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market return of around 32% (not including dividends). If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! And shareholders have also done well over the long term, with an increase of 40% in the last three years.

Since the stock has added US$1.0b to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Carnival Corporation &

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.

Carnival Corporation & went from making a loss to reporting a profit, in the last year.

When a company has just transitioned to profitability, earnings per share growth is not always the best way to look at the share price action.

We think that the revenue growth of 22% could have some investors interested. Many businesses do go through a phase where they have to forgo some profits to drive business development, and sometimes its for the best.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

Carnival Corporation & is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. If you are thinking of buying or selling Carnival Corporation & stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Carnival Corporation & shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 59% over the last year. That certainly beats the loss of about 7% per year over the last half decade. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Carnival Corporation & better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Carnival Corporation & (including 1 which is a bit concerning) .

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: many of them are unnoticed AND have attractive valuation).

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.