The Webjet Limited (ASX: WEB) share price has had a rough start to this Wednesday's trading. At the time of writing, Webjet shares are down 1.24% to $4.86 a share.
That stands in contrast to the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which is currently up for the day, albeit just. The ASX 200 is presently sitting at 7,515 points with a rather anaemic 0.05% rise today.
But zooming out, the picture for Webjet looks a lot better. This company is currently up an impressive 43.86% over the past 12 months. Yes, 12 months ago, Webjet was asking just $3.42 a share.
Over this period, Webjet has handsomely outperformed the ASX 200, given the ASX's flagship index is 'only' up 22.7% over the same period.
Webjet is a travel company – not exactly a business you would expect to have a bumper 12 months over the year just gone. Domestic travel remains closed in Australia in light of these most recent Delta lockdowns. And we won't even mention international travel.
So how has Webjet pulled this outperformance off?
Well, firstly it's worth noting that much of Webjet's gains over the past year occurred in the back half of 2020. See, Webjet saw a far more brutal sell off in the initial coronavirus-induced sharemarket crash in March last year than the ASX 200 experienced.
While the ASX 200 fell around 35% between 20 February and 23 March 2020, Webjet shares crashed by a far nastier 73.5% between 20 February and 24 April. Whilst that move was more devastating for Webjet shareholders at the time, it has arguably also given the company more room to recover in the months since.
How has the Webjet share price outperformed the ASX 200 over the past year?
Also assisting Webjet in the past year was the initial approval of several COVID-19 vaccine candidates back in November last year. As we reported at the time, that was when the US pharma giant Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) released its first phase 3 results for its vaccine – indicating at the time that it was highly effective against COVID-19 infection and illness.
Over a single week in November 2020, the Webjet share price rose 18%. The company has never looked back since, even after all of the twists and turns the past 9 months have delivered.
But, saying that, most of the Webjet's share price outperformance over the past year has come from that period. To illustrate, although the Webjet share price remains up 43.86% over the past 12 months, it is still down 4.3% year to date in 2021. That compares rather poorly against the ASX 200 which is up 12.4% over the same period.
More recently, we have seen some positive attention given to Webjet shares from brokers and fund managers. My Fool colleague Nikhil covered how ASX fundie Roger Montgomery was looking at Webjet shares just last month.
At the current Webjet share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $1.86 billion.
