Saia's (NASDAQ:SAIA) five-year earnings growth trails the massive shareholder returns

Buying shares in the best businesses can build meaningful wealth for you and your family. While not every stock performs well, when investors win, they can win big. To wit, the Saia, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAIA) share price has soared 364% over five years. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. And in the last week the share price has popped 8.7%.

The past week has proven to be lucrative for Saia investors, so let's see if fundamentals drove the company's five-year performance.

View our latest analysis for Saia

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 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 five years of share price growth, Saia achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 27% per year. This EPS growth is lower than the 36% average annual increase in the share price. This suggests that market participants hold the company in higher regard, these days. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. This free interactive report on Saia's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Saia shareholders are up 16% for the year. But that was short of the market average. It's probably a good sign that the company has an even better long term track record, having provided shareholders with an annual TSR of 36% over five years. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Saia better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Saia that you should be aware of before investing here.

Saia is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find lesser know companies this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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.