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ARB Corporation Limited (ASX:ARB) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 23% in the last quarter. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last five years have been very strong. It's fair to say most would be happy with 103% the gain in that time. To some, the recent pullback wouldn't be surprising after such a fast rise. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it's cheap now.
The past week has proven to be lucrative for ARB investors, so let's see if fundamentals drove the company's five-year performance.
We check all companies for important risks. See what we found for ARB in our free report.
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 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, ARB achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 12% per year. So the EPS growth rate is rather close to the annualized share price gain of 15% per year. That suggests that the market sentiment around the company hasn't changed much over that time. Indeed, it would appear the share price is reacting to the EPS.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on ARB's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for ARB the TSR over the last 5 years was 124%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!
A Different Perspective
Investors in ARB had a tough year, with a total loss of 21% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 0.4%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 18%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. Investors who like to make money usually check up on insider purchases, such as the price paid, and total amount bought. You can find out about the insider purchases of ARB by clicking this link.