Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 10% in the last quarter.    But looking back over the last year, the returns have actually been rather pleasing!  To wit, it had solidly beat the market, up 82%.    

Although Western Alliance Bancorporation has shed US$380m from its market cap this week, let's take a look at its longer term fundamental trends and see if they've driven returns.  

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 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).

Over the last twelve months, Western Alliance Bancorporation actually shrank its EPS by 33%.

So we don't think that investors are paying too much attention to EPS.  Therefore, it seems likely that investors are putting more weight on metrics other than EPS, at the moment.

However the year on year revenue growth of 3.4% would help.  We do see some companies suppress earnings in order to accelerate revenue growth.    

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

NYSE:WAL Earnings and Revenue Growth April 11th 2024

Western Alliance Bancorporation is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth.  So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR).  Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off.  It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend.  As it happens, Western Alliance Bancorporation's TSR for the last 1 year was 88%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier.  And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Western Alliance Bancorporation shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 88% over the last year.   Of course, that includes the dividend.     That's better than the annualised return of 7% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently.  In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper.        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.   For instance, we've identified   2 warning signs for Western Alliance Bancorporation  that you should be aware of.  

We will like Western Alliance Bancorporation better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies 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.