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By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. Just take a look at mobilezone holding ag (VTX:MOZN), which is up 51%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 1.7% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 31% , including dividends .
So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.
See our latest analysis for mobilezone holding ag
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. 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.
mobilezone holding ag was able to grow its EPS at 12% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is lower than the 15% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that the market is feeling more optimistic on the stock, after the last few years of progress. That's not necessarily surprising considering the three-year track record of earnings growth.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We know that mobilezone holding ag has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.
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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for mobilezone holding ag the TSR over the last 3 years was 78%, 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
It's good to see that mobilezone holding ag has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 31% in the last twelve months. That's including the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 12% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. 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. Take risks, for example - mobilezone holding ag has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.