The worst result, after buying shares in a company (assuming no leverage), would be if you lose all the money you put in. But on a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. One great example is Performance Food Group Company (NYSE:PFGC) which saw its share price drive 253% higher over five years. It’s also good to see the share price up 24% over the last quarter. But this move may well have been assisted by the reasonably buoyant market (up 16% in 90 days).

So let’s investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business’ progress.

This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality.

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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.

Over half a decade, Performance Food Group managed to grow its earnings per share at 21% a year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 29% per year, over the same period. So it’s fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. That’s not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

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

It is of course excellent to see how Performance Food Group has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. If you are thinking of buying or selling Performance Food Group stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

It’s nice to see that Performance Food Group shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 48% over the last year. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 29%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It’s always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Performance Food Group better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we’ve discovered 1 warning sign for Performance Food Group that you should be aware of before investing here.