The one-year earnings decline is not helping IBEX's (NASDAQ:IBEX share price, as stock falls another 12% in past week

The simplest way to benefit from a rising market is to buy an index fund. When you buy individual stocks, you can make higher profits, but you also face the risk of under-performance. Investors in IBEX Limited (NASDAQ:IBEX) have tasted that bitter downside in the last year, as the share price dropped 23%. That's well below the market return of 23%. Because IBEX hasn't been listed for many years, the market is still learning about how the business performs. Furthermore, it's down 17% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

Given the past week has been tough on shareholders, let's investigate the fundamentals and see what we can learn.

View our latest analysis for IBEX

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

During the last year IBEX grew its earnings per share, moving from a loss to a profit.

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. But we may find different metrics more enlightening.

IBEX's revenue is actually up 5.9% over the last year. Since we can't easily explain the share price movement based on these metrics, it might be worth considering how market sentiment has changed towards the stock.

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

This free interactive report on IBEX's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

While IBEX shareholders are down 23% for the year, the market itself is up 23%. While the aim is to do better than that, it's worth recalling that even great long-term investments sometimes underperform for a year or more. The share price decline has continued throughout the most recent three months, down 17%, suggesting an absence of enthusiasm from investors. Given the relatively short history of this stock, we'd remain pretty wary until we see some strong business performance. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand IBEX better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with IBEX .

But note: IBEX may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

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.

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