Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. Just think about the savvy investors who held Enphase Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENPH) shares for the last five years, while they gained 584%. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. In the last week shares have slid back 3.4%. It really delights us to see such great share price performance for investors.

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 five-year return.

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 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 five years of share price growth, Enphase Energy moved from a loss to profitability. Sometimes, the start of profitability is a major inflection point that can signal fast earnings growth to come, which in turn justifies very strong share price gains. Given that the company made a profit three years ago, but not five years ago, it is worth looking at the share price returns over the last three years, too. In fact, the Enphase Energy stock price is 22% lower in the last three years. Meanwhile, EPS is up 39% per year. So there seems to be a mismatch between the positive EPS growth and the change in the share price, which is down -8% per year.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. This free interactive report on Enphase Energy's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Enphase Energy shareholders are down 32% for the year, but the market itself is up 30%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 47%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. 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 Enphase Energy is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Enphase Energy is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find lesser know companies this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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.