The 5.3% return this week takes TriMas' (NASDAQ:TRS) shareholders five-year gains to 29%

If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. Furthermore, you'd generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the TriMas Corporation (NASDAQ:TRS) share price is up 28% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Zooming in, the stock is actually down 5.3% in the last year.

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

View our latest analysis for TriMas

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During the five years of share price growth, TriMas moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we'd expect the share price to be up. 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 TriMas share price has gained 10% in three years. Meanwhile, EPS is up 5.5% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 3% average annual increase in the share price over the same three years. Therefore, it seems the market has moderated its expectations for growth, somewhat.

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

We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, TriMas shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 4.8% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 8.1%. Of course, the long term returns are far more important and the good news is that over five years, the stock has returned 5% for each year. In the best case scenario the last year is just a temporary blip on the journey to a brighter future. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for TriMas you should know about.

TriMas 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 US 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.

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