B&G Foods (NYSE:BGS) shareholders have endured a 66% loss from investing in the stock three years ago

Yahoo

20-03-2025

B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 21% in the last month. Meanwhile over the last three years the stock has dropped hard. In that time, the share price dropped 73%. So it's good to see it climbing back up. The rise has some hopeful, but turnarounds are often precarious.
Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.
View our latest analysis for B&G Foods
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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.
B&G Foods has made a profit in the past. On the other hand, it reported a trailing twelve months loss, suggesting it isn't reliably profitable. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.
It's quite likely that the declining dividend has caused some investors to sell their shares, pushing the price lower in the process. It doesn't seem like the changes in revenue would have impacted the share price much, but a closer inspection of the data might reveal something.
You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
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. You can see what analysts are predicting for B&G Foods in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, B&G Foods' TSR for the last 3 years was -66%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
Investors in B&G Foods had a tough year, with a total loss of 30% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 9.8%. 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 7% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for B&G Foods (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
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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