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The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Frey SA (EPA:FREY) share price is up 33% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Some buyers are laughing, though, with an increase of 23% in the last year.
View our latest analysis for Frey
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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.
Frey's earnings per share are down 13% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.
Essentially, it doesn't seem likely that investors are focused on EPS. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.
In contrast revenue growth of 12% per year is probably viewed as evidence that Frey is growing, a real positive. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
Take a more thorough look at Frey's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.
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 Frey the TSR over the last 5 years was 65%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
Frey shareholders have received returns of 32% over twelve months (even including dividends) , which isn't far from the general market return. That gain looks pretty satisfying, and it is even better than the five-year TSR of 10% per year. Even if the share price growth slows down from here, there's a good chance that this is business worth watching in the long term. Keeping this in mind, a solid next step might be to take a look at Frey's dividend track record. This free interactive graph is a great place to start.