Investors Who Bought Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR) Shares Five Years Ago Are Now Up 31%

If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. But Quanta Services, Inc. (NYSE:PWR) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 31% over five years, which is below the market return. Unfortunately the share price is down 3.6% in the last year.

See our latest analysis for Quanta Services

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).

Over half a decade, Quanta Services managed to grow its earnings per share at 12% a year. The EPS growth is more impressive than the yearly share price gain of 5.5% over the same period. Therefore, it seems the market has become relatively pessimistic about the company.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

This free interactive report on Quanta Services's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Quanta Services shareholders are down 3.1% for the year (even including dividends) , but the market itself is up 9.0%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 5.7%, each year, over five years. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Even so, be aware that Quanta Services is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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. 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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