It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. For example, the G. K. Goh Holdings Limited (SGX:G41) share price is down 16% in the last year. That's well bellow the market return of 4.0%. On the bright side, the stock is actually up 1.8% in the last three years. Unhappily, the share price slid 1.2% in the last week.

Check out our latest analysis for G. K. Goh Holdings

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 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.

During the last year G. K. Goh Holdings saw its earnings per share drop below zero. While this may prove temporary, we'd consider it a negative, so it doesn't surprise us that the stock price is down. Of course, if the company can turn the situation around, investors will likely profit.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

Dive deeper into G. K. Goh Holdings's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of G. K. Goh Holdings's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We'd be remiss not to mention the difference between G. K. Goh Holdings's total shareholder return (TSR) and its 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. Its history of dividend payouts mean that G. K. Goh Holdings's TSR, which was a 14% drop over the last year, was not as bad as the share price return.

A Different Perspective

Investors in G. K. Goh Holdings had a tough year, with a total loss of 14% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 4.0%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 3.2%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. Shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.