As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But its virtually certain that sometimes you will buy stocks that fall short of the market average returns. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) shareholders, since the share price is down 32% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 26%. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 24% in the last year. Furthermore, it's down 15% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. 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.

Biogen saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 14% per year, over the last three years. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 12% average annual decrease in the share price. That suggests that the market sentiment around the company hasn't changed much over that time, despite the disappointment. It seems like the share price is reflecting the declining earnings per share.

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

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. This free interactive report on Biogen's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Investors in Biogen had a tough year, with a total loss of 24%, against a market gain of about 36%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 3% over the last half decade. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Biogen better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Biogen you should be aware of.

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of undervalued small cap companies that insiders are 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.