Shareholders Are Thrilled That The Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) Share Price Increased 225%

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The most you can lose on any stock (assuming you don't use leverage) is 100% of your money. But on a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. For instance, the price of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) stock is up an impressive 225% over the last five years. It's also good to see the share price up 15% over the last quarter. But this move may well have been assisted by the reasonably buoyant market (up 15% in 90 days).

Check out our latest analysis for Intuitive Surgical

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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).

Over half a decade, Intuitive Surgical managed to grow its earnings per share at 23% a year. This EPS growth is reasonably close to the 27% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Intuitive Surgical's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Intuitive Surgical has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 13% in the last twelve months. However, that falls short of the 27% TSR per annum it has made for shareholders, each year, over five years. The pessimistic view would be that be that the stock has its best days behind it, but on the other hand the price might simply be moderating while the business itself continues to execute. If you would like to research Intuitive Surgical in more detail then you might want to take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in the company.

We will like Intuitive Surgical better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

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. 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.

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