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Buying a low-cost index fund will get you the average market return. But in any diversified portfolio of stocks, you'll see some that fall short of the average. For example, the Banner Corporation (NASDAQ:BANR) share price return of 11% over three years lags the market return in the same period. Zooming in, the stock is up a respectable 5.1% in the last year.
Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 3.5%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.
Check out our latest analysis for Banner
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 flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.
Banner was able to grow its EPS at 8.8% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is higher than the 3% average annual increase in the share price. So it seems investors have become more cautious about the company, over time. We'd venture the lowish P/E ratio of 10.60 also reflects the negative sentiment around the stock.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Banner'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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Banner the TSR over the last 3 years was 25%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
It's nice to see that Banner shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 8.3% over the last year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 6%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Banner better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Banner is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is potentially serious...