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These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But you can do a lot better than that by buying good quality businesses for attractive prices. For example, the Wintrust Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:WTFC) share price is up 45% in the last five years, slightly above the market return. In stark contrast, the stock price has actually fallen 27% in the last year.
See our latest analysis for Wintrust Financial
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 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.
During five years of share price growth, Wintrust Financial achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 13% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 7.7% average annual increase in the share price. So it seems the market isn't so enthusiastic about the stock these days. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 11.11.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We know that Wintrust Financial has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? This free report showing analyst revenue forecasts should help you figure out if the EPS growth can be sustained.
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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Wintrust Financial the TSR over the last 5 years was 52%, 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
Investors in Wintrust Financial had a tough year, with a total loss of 26% (including dividends) , against a market gain of about 3.0%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 8.8%, 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. If you would like to research Wintrust Financial in more detail then you might want to take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in the company.