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It hasn't been the best quarter for Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR) shareholders, since the share price has fallen 21% in that time. On the bright side the share price is up over the last half decade. Unfortunately its return of 30% is below the market return of 138%.
Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.
There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.
Schneider National's earnings per share are down 4.3% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.
By glancing at these numbers, we'd posit that the decline in earnings per share is not representative of how the business has changed over the years. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.
The modest 1.6% dividend yield is unlikely to be propping up the share price. In contrast revenue growth of 4.4% per year is probably viewed as evidence that Schneider National is growing, a real positive. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment.
You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).
Schneider National is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Schneider National in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.
What About Dividends?
When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Schneider National the TSR over the last 5 years was 52%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!