The most you can lose on any stock (assuming you don't use leverage) is 100% of your money. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. For instance, the price of Fiducial Real Estate SA (EPA:ORIA) stock is up an impressive 104% over the last five years.

Check out our latest analysis for Fiducial Real Estate

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

During five years of share price growth, Fiducial Real Estate achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 12% per year. This EPS growth is lower than the 15% average annual increase in the share price. This suggests that market participants hold the company in higher regard, these days. That's not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

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

This free interactive report on Fiducial Real Estate's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, Fiducial Real Estate's TSR for the last 5 years was 111%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Fiducial Real Estate shareholders gained a total return of 1.6% during the year. But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, the longer term returns (running at about 16% a year, over half a decade) look better. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. Before deciding if you like the current share price, check how Fiducial Real Estate scores on these 3 valuation metrics.

We will like Fiducial Real Estate better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.