The main aim of stock picking is to find the market-beating stocks. But the main game is to find enough winners to more than offset the losers At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad (KLSE:KERJAYA), since the last five years saw the share price fall 37%.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

Check out our latest analysis for Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad

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. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

During the five years over which the share price declined, Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 5.1% each year. Readers should note that the share price has fallen faster than the EPS, at a rate of 9% per year, over the period. This implies that the market is more cautious about the business these days.

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

We know that Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? Check if analysts think Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad will grow revenue in the future.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. As it happens, Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad's TSR for the last 5 years was -27%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 1.9% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. There's no doubt those recent returns are much better than the TSR loss of 5% per year over five years. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad .