Yahoo Finance The five-year earnings decline is not helping Blackbaud's (NASDAQ:BLKB share price, as stock falls another 4.4% in past week
In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But the main game is to find enough winners to more than offset the losers At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB), since the last five years saw the share price fall 12%. Furthermore, it's down 11% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.
After losing 4.4% this past week, it's worth investigating the company's fundamentals to see what we can infer from past performance.
See our latest analysis for Blackbaud
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.
Blackbaud became profitable within the last five years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. Other metrics may better explain the share price move.
Revenue is actually up 5.2% over the time period. A more detailed examination of the revenue and earnings may or may not explain why the share price languishes; there could be an opportunity.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We know that Blackbaud has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Blackbaud will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).
A Different Perspective
Blackbaud provided a TSR of 5.8% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it is certainly better than the yearly loss of about 2% endured over half a decade. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. 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. Take risks, for example - Blackbaud has 3 warning signs we think you should be aware of.
But note: Blackbaud 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 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.
