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We think all investors should try to buy and hold high quality multi-year winners. And highest quality companies can see their share prices grow by huge amounts. For example, the Euroseas Ltd. (NASDAQ:ESEA) share price is up a whopping 475% in the last half decade, a handsome return for long term holders. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. The last week saw the share price soften some 6.0%.
So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 5 years and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.
View our latest analysis for Euroseas
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 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 the five years of share price growth, Euroseas moved from a loss to profitability. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here. Since the company was unprofitable five years ago, but not three years ago, it's worth taking a look at the returns in the last three years, too. Indeed, the Euroseas share price has gained 150% in three years. In the same period, EPS is up 204% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 36% average annual increase in the share price over the same three years. So you might conclude the market is a little more cautious about the stock, these days. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 2.03.
You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
We know that Euroseas has improved its bottom line over the last three years, but what does the future have in store? Take a more thorough look at Euroseas' financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.
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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Euroseas the TSR over the last 5 years was 576%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.