For us, stock picking is in large part the hunt for the truly magnificent stocks. Not every pick can be a winner, but when you pick the right stock, you can win big. For example, the Rolls-Royce Holdings plc (LON:RR.) share price is up a whopping 352% in the last three years, a handsome return for long term holders. We note the stock price is up 8.3% in the last seven days.

Since it's been a strong week for Rolls-Royce Holdings shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.

See our latest analysis for Rolls-Royce Holdings

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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 three years of share price growth, Rolls-Royce Holdings actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) drop 0.2% per year.

Companies are not always focussed on EPS growth in the short term, and looking at how the share price has reacted, we don't think EPS is the most important metric for Rolls-Royce Holdings at the moment. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

It could be that the revenue growth of 18% per year is viewed as evidence that Rolls-Royce Holdings is growing. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth, and maybe shareholder's faith in better days ahead will be rewarded.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

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. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Rolls-Royce Holdings has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 120% in the last twelve months. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 13% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Rolls-Royce Holdings (of which 2 don't sit too well with us!) you should know about.