Kimball International, Inc. (NASDAQ:KBAL) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 14% in the last quarter. But that cannot eclipse the less-than-impressive returns over the last three years. Truth be told the share price declined 24% in three years and that return, Dear Reader, falls short of what you could have got from passive investing with an index fund.
See our latest analysis for Kimball International
To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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).
During the three years that the share price fell, Kimball International's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 13% each year. In comparison the 9% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. So the market may not be too worried about the EPS figure, at the moment -- or it may have previously priced some of the drop in.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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 Kimball International the TSR over the last 3 years was -18%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 39% in the last year, Kimball International shareholders lost 3.3% (even including dividends). However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 6%, 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Kimball International better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Kimball International has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.