Buying shares in the best businesses can build meaningful wealth for you and your family. While the best companies are hard to find, but they can generate massive returns over long periods. Don't believe it? Then look at the Saia, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAIA) share price. It's 624% higher than it was five years ago. And this is just one example of the epic gains achieved by some long term investors. In more good news, the share price has risen 23% in thirty days. But the price may well have benefitted from a buoyant market, since stocks have gained 10% in the last thirty days. It really delights us to see such great share price performance for investors.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

View our latest analysis for Saia

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. 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, Saia achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 21% per year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 49% per year, over the same period. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover 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. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Saia has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 86% in the last twelve months. That's better than the annualised return of 49% 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. Before spending more time on Saia it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.