If you want to compound wealth in the stock market, you can do so by buying an index fund. But the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, the Clasquin SA (EPA:ALCLA) share price is 46% higher than it was five years ago, which is more than the market average. The 4.5% share price rise over the last year is decent, but not great.
See our latest analysis for Clasquin
To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.
Over half a decade, Clasquin managed to grow its earnings per share at 8.2% a year. That makes the EPS growth particularly close to the yearly share price growth of 7.8%. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. Indeed, it would appear the share price is reacting to the EPS.
The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
Dive deeper into Clasquin's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Clasquin'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 incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Clasquin, it has a TSR of 66% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
Clasquin provided a TSR of 6.3% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. It's probably a good sign that the company has an even better long term track record, having provided shareholders with an annual TSR of 11% over five years. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks, for example - Clasquin has 3 warning signs (and 1 which shouldn't be ignored) we think you should know about.