When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 43% over five years, which is below the market return. Unfortunately the share price is down 20% in the last year.

After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.

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While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

During the five years of share price growth, Goodyear Tire & Rubber moved from a loss to profitability. That's generally thought to be a genuine positive, so investors may expect to see an increasing share price.

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. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Goodyear Tire & Rubber's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 6.2% in the last year, Goodyear Tire & Rubber shareholders lost 20%. 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. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 7% per year over half a decade. 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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Goodyear Tire & Rubber .

Goodyear Tire & Rubber is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of small cap companies at attractive valuations which insiders have been 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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