Investors in Kirby (NYSE:KEX) have made a decent return of 52% over the past three years

You can receive the average market return by buying a low-cost index fund. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the Kirby Corporation (NYSE:KEX) share price is up 52% in the last three years, slightly above the market return. In contrast, the stock is actually down 7.9% in the last year, suggesting a lack of positive momentum.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for Kirby

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

Kirby became profitable within the last three years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we'd expect the share price to be up.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Kirby's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, Kirby shareholders can take comfort that their trailing twelve month loss of 7.9% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 13%. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it's worse than the annualised loss of 3% over the last half decade. While some investors do well specializing in buying companies that are struggling (but nonetheless undervalued), don't forget that Buffett said that 'turnarounds seldom turn'. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Kirby better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Kirby is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Kirby is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments 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.