It might be of some concern to shareholders to see the Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BOOT) share price down 22% in the last month. But in stark contrast, the returns over the last half decade have impressed. It's fair to say most would be happy with 231% the gain in that time. So while it's never fun to see a share price fall, it's important to look at a longer time horizon. Ultimately business performance will determine whether the stock price continues the positive long term trend.

Although Boot Barn Holdings has shed US$996m from its market cap this week, let's take a look at its longer term fundamental trends and see if they've driven returns.

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.

Over half a decade, Boot Barn Holdings managed to grow its earnings per share at 26% a year. That makes the EPS growth particularly close to the yearly share price growth of 27%. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. In fact, the share price seems to largely reflect the EPS growth.

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 Boot Barn Holdings' earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Boot Barn Holdings shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 86% over the last year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 27% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. Before spending more time on Boot Barn Holdings it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.

But note: Boot Barn Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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.