One simple way to benefit from the stock market is to buy an index fund. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. Just take a look at BBI Life Sciences Corporation (HKG:1035), which is up 63%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of -18% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 23% , including dividends .

View our latest analysis for BBI Life Sciences

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).

BBI Life Sciences was able to grow its EPS at 14% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. We don't think it is entirely coincidental that the EPS growth is reasonably close to the 18% average annual increase in the share price. This observation indicates that the market's attitude to the business hasn't changed all that much. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

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. This free interactive report on BBI Life Sciences's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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 BBI Life Sciences the TSR over the last 3 years was 68%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that BBI Life Sciences shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 23% over the last year. That's including the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 11% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand BBI Life Sciences better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for BBI Life Sciences you should be aware of, and 1 of them is potentially serious.