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It hasn't been the best quarter for Columbus McKinnon Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCO) shareholders, since the share price has fallen 18% in that time. But at least the stock is up over the last five years. Unfortunately its return of 43% is below the market return of 86%. Unfortunately not all shareholders will have held it for the long term, so spare a thought for those caught in the 28% decline over the last twelve months.
In light of the stock dropping 6.9% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive five-year return.
See our latest analysis for Columbus McKinnon
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.
Columbus McKinnon's earnings per share are down 0.2% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.
So it's hard to argue that the earnings per share are the best metric to judge the company, as it may not be optimized for profits at this point. Therefore, it's worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movements.
The modest 0.8% dividend yield is unlikely to be propping up the share price. We are not particularly impressed by the annual compound revenue growth of 0.5% over five years. So why is the share price up? It's not immediately obvious to us, but a closer look at the company's progress over time might yield answers.
The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
We know that Columbus McKinnon has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? If you are thinking of buying or selling Columbus McKinnon stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.
What About Dividends?
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. As it happens, Columbus McKinnon's TSR for the last 5 years was 47%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.