Announcing: Coherent (NASDAQ:COHR) Stock Increased An Energizing 186% In The Last Five Years

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When you buy a stock there is always a possibility that it could drop 100%. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. For instance, the price of Coherent, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHR) stock is up an impressive 186% over the last five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 11% gain in the last three months. But this could be related to the strong market, which is up 10% in the last three months.

Check out our latest analysis for Coherent

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 five years of share price growth, Coherent actually saw its EPS drop 1.3% per year.

So it's hard to argue that the earnings per share are the best metric to judge the company, as it may not be optimized for profits at this point. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

In contrast revenue growth of 20% per year is probably viewed as evidence that Coherent is growing, a real positive. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

NasdaqGS:COHR Income Statement, December 30th 2019
NasdaqGS:COHR Income Statement, December 30th 2019

Coherent is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Coherent shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 57% over the last year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 23% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Given the share price momentum remains strong, it might be worth taking a closer look at the stock, lest you miss an opportunity. If you would like to research Coherent in more detail then you might want to take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in the company.

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 US exchanges.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.

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