These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. To wit, the Vita Life Sciences Limited (ASX:VLS) share price is 55% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market return of around 26% (not including dividends) in the same period. That's a solid performance by our standards! It is also impressive that the stock is up 45% over three years, adding to the sense that it is a real winner.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

See our latest analysis for Vita Life Sciences

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 Vita Life Sciences grew its earnings per share (EPS) by 34%. This EPS growth is significantly lower than the 55% increase in the share price. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it a year ago.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Vita Life Sciences' earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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. As it happens, Vita Life Sciences' TSR for the last 1 year was 62%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Vita Life Sciences has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 62% in the last twelve months. And that does include the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 2% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Vita Life Sciences .