Despite currently being unprofitable, O-I Glass (NYSE:OI) has delivered a 38% return to shareholders over 5 years

The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But O-I Glass, Inc. (NYSE:OI) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 38% over five years, which is below the market return. On a brighter note, more newer shareholders are probably rather content with the 23% share price gain over twelve months.

Although O-I Glass has shed US$212m from its market cap this week, let's take a look at its longer term fundamental trends and see if they've driven returns.

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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.

We know that O-I Glass has been profitable in the past. On the other hand, it reported a trailing twelve months loss, suggesting it isn't reliably profitable. So we might find other metrics can better explain the share price movements.

The revenue growth of 2.0% per year hardly seems impressive. So why is the share price up? It's not immediately obvious to us, but a closer look at the company's progress over time might yield answers.

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. 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 O-I Glass has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 23% in the last twelve months. That's better than the annualised return of 7% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand O-I Glass better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for O-I Glass (1 is significant) that you should be aware of.

O-I Glass is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of small cap companies at attractive valuations which insiders have been 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.