These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. To wit, the Shanghai QiFan Cable Co., Ltd (SHSE:605222) share price is 26% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market decline of around 9.8% (not including dividends) in the same period. If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! We'll need to follow Shanghai QiFan Cable for a while to get a better sense of its share price trend, since it hasn't been listed for particularly long.

In light of the stock dropping 3.4% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive one-year return.

See our latest analysis for Shanghai QiFan Cable

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During the last year Shanghai QiFan Cable grew its earnings per share (EPS) by 36%. This EPS growth is significantly higher than the 26% increase in the share price. So it seems like the market has cooled on Shanghai QiFan Cable, despite the growth. Interesting.

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

This free interactive report on Shanghai QiFan Cable's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Shanghai QiFan Cable boasts a total shareholder return of 27% for the last year (that includes the dividends) . And the share price momentum remains respectable, with a gain of 45% in the last three months. This suggests the company is continuing to win over new investors. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Shanghai QiFan Cable better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Shanghai QiFan Cable (including 2 which make us uncomfortable) .

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CN 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.