The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. To wit, the Pilgrim's Pride Corporation (NASDAQ:PPC) share price is 92% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market return of around 32% (not including dividends) in the same period. If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! Also impressive, the stock is up 79% over three years, making long term shareholders happy, too.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

View our latest analysis for Pilgrim's Pride

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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.

Pilgrim's Pride boasted truly magnificent EPS growth in the last year. While that particular rate of growth is unlikely to be sustained for long, it is still remarkable. We are not surprised the share price is up. We're real advocates of letting inflection points like this guide our research as stock pickers.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

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. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Pilgrim's Pride shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 92% over one year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 9% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. 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 Pilgrim's Pride is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

We will like Pilgrim's Pride better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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.