Did You Miss Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Whopping 497% Share Price Gain?

For many, the main point of investing in the stock market is to achieve spectacular returns. While not every stock performs well, when investors win, they can win big. Don't believe it? Then look at the Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) share price. It's 497% higher than it was five years ago. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. In contrast, the stock has fallen 9.9% in the last 30 days. This could be related to the soft market, with stocks down around 1.8% in the last month.

View our latest analysis for Amazon.com

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 half decade, Amazon.com became profitable. Sometimes, the start of profitability is a major inflection point that can signal fast earnings growth to come, which in turn justifies very strong share price gains. Given that the company made a profit three years ago, but not five years ago, it is worth looking at the share price returns over the last three years, too. Indeed, the Amazon.com share price has gained 215% in three years. In the same period, EPS is up 87% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 47% average annual increase in the share price over the same three years. So you might conclude the market is a little more cautious about the stock, these days. Of course, with a P/E ratio of 111.75, the market remains optimistic.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. This free interactive report on Amazon.com's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Amazon.com has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 70% in the last twelve months. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 43% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Amazon.com that you should be aware of before investing here.

We will like Amazon.com better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider 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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