Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. To wit, the Insight Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSIT) share price has soared 350% over five years. And this is just one example of the epic gains achieved by some long term investors. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 11% gain in the last three months. But this move may well have been assisted by the reasonably buoyant market (up 6.2% in 90 days).

Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.

See our latest analysis for Insight Enterprises

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).

During five years of share price growth, Insight Enterprises achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 15% per year. This EPS growth is lower than the 35% average annual increase in the share price. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. That's not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

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

We know that Insight Enterprises has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? Check if analysts think Insight Enterprises will grow revenue in the future.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Insight Enterprises has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 36% in the last twelve months. That's better than the annualised return of 35% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. 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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Insight Enterprises .

We will like Insight Enterprises better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying.