By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the MRC Global Inc. (NYSE:MRC) share price is up 82% in the last three years, clearly besting the market return of around 20% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 32% in the last year.

Since it's been a strong week for MRC Global shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

During three years of share price growth, MRC Global moved from a loss to profitability. So we would expect a higher share price over the period.

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

We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. This free interactive report on MRC Global's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

MRC Global's TSR for the year was broadly in line with the market average, at 32%. Most would be happy with a gain, and it helps that the year's return is actually better than the average return over five years, which was 1.1%. Even if the share price growth slows down from here, there's a good chance that this is business worth watching in the long term. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand MRC Global better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that MRC Global is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: most of them are flying under the radar).

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.