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By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you buy good businesses at attractive prices, your portfolio returns could exceed the average market return. For example, the Schroders plc (LON:SDR) share price is up 41% in the last three years, clearly besting the market return of around 9.9% (not including dividends).
Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.
View our latest analysis for Schroders
There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).
Over the last three years, Schroders failed to grow earnings per share, which fell 2.5% (annualized).
Given the share price resilience, we don't think the (declining) EPS numbers are a good measure of how the business is moving forward, right now. So other metrics may hold the key to understanding what is influencing investors.
Do you think that shareholders are buying for the 0.7% per annum revenue growth trend? We don't. While we don't have an obvious theory to explain the share price rise, a closer look at the data might be enlightening.
You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
Schroders is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. If you are thinking of buying or selling Schroders stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits.
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, Schroders' TSR for the last 3 years was 59%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!
A Different Perspective
It's nice to see that Schroders shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 39% over the last year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 9% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. Before spending more time on Schroders it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.