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The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Minerals Technologies Inc. (NYSE:MTX) share price is up 37% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Over the last twelve months the stock price has risen a very respectable 14%.
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.
Check out our latest analysis for Minerals Technologies
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just 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 half a decade, Minerals Technologies managed to grow its earnings per share at 2.8% a year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 7% per year, over the same period. This suggests that market participants hold the company in higher regard, these days. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
We know that Minerals Technologies has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? This free report showing analyst revenue forecasts should help you figure out if the EPS growth can be sustained.
What About Dividends?
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Minerals Technologies, it has a TSR of 40% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
Minerals Technologies shareholders gained a total return of 15% during the year. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 7% per year over five year. This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. Most investors take the time to check the data on insider transactions. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.