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Passive investing in index funds can generate returns that roughly match the overall market. But the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, the Service Corporation International (NYSE:SCI) share price is 98% higher than it was five years ago, which is more than the market average. It's fair to say the stock has continued its long term trend in the last year, over which it has risen 42%.
Since the stock has added US$460m to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.
Check out our latest analysis for Service Corporation International
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.
During five years of share price growth, Service Corporation International achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 8.9% per year. This EPS growth is lower than the 15% average annual increase in the share price. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.
The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Service Corporation International'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. As it happens, Service Corporation International's TSR for the last 5 years was 115%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
It's nice to see that Service Corporation International shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 45% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 17% 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 Service Corporation International better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Service Corporation International .