Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. Active investors aim to buy stocks that vastly outperform the market - but in the process, they risk under-performance. Investors in King's Flair International (Holdings) Limited (HKG:6822) have tasted that bitter downside in the last year, as the share price dropped 16%. That's disappointing when you consider the market returned 4.7%. At least the damage isn't so bad if you look at the last three years, since the stock is down 11% in that time.

Check out our latest analysis for King's Flair International (Holdings)

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 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.

Unhappily, King's Flair International (Holdings) had to report a 17% decline in EPS over the last year. This change in EPS is remarkably close to the 16% decrease in the share price. Given the lower EPS we might have expected investors to lose confidence in the stock, but that doesn't seemed to have happened. Rather, the share price is remains a similar multiple of the EPS, suggesting the outlook remains the same.

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

This free interactive report on King's Flair International (Holdings)'s earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for King's Flair International (Holdings) the TSR over the last year was -7.2%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

Investors in King's Flair International (Holdings) had a tough year, with a total loss of 7.2% (including dividends) , against a market gain of about 4.7%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 12%, 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. 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. Be aware that King's Flair International (Holdings) is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is significant...