It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. Active investors aim to buy stocks that vastly outperform the market - but in the process, they risk under-performance. Unfortunately the Beeks Financial Cloud Group plc (LON:BKS) share price slid 22% over twelve months. That's disappointing when you consider the market declined 0.2%. Longer term investors have fared much better, since the share price is up 11% in three years. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 11% in the last three months.

Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for Beeks Financial Cloud Group

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.

Beeks Financial Cloud Group fell to a loss making position during the year. Buyers no doubt think it's a temporary situation, but those with a nose for quality have low tolerance for losses. However, there may be an opportunity for investors if the company can recover.

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

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized 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 Beeks Financial Cloud Group's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Beeks Financial Cloud Group shareholders are down 22% for the year, but the market itself is up 0.2%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 1.9% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. 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 Beeks Financial Cloud Group is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...