While it may not be enough for some shareholders, we think it is good to see the Breedon Group plc (LON:BREE) share price up 11% in a single quarter. But that cannot eclipse the less-than-impressive returns over the last three years. After all, the share price is down 19% in the last three years, significantly under-performing the market.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

See our latest analysis for Breedon Group

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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).

Although the share price is down over three years, Breedon Group actually managed to grow EPS by 49% per year in that time. Given the share price reaction, one might suspect that EPS is not a good guide to the business performance during the period (perhaps due to a one-off loss or gain). Or else the company was over-hyped in the past, and so its growth has disappointed.

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.

Revenue is actually up 18% over the three years, so the share price drop doesn't seem to hinge on revenue, either. This analysis is just perfunctory, but it might be worth researching Breedon Group more closely, as sometimes stocks fall unfairly. This could present an opportunity.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

Breedon Group is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Breedon Group will earn in the future (free analyst consensus estimates)

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. As it happens, Breedon Group's TSR for the last 3 years was -14%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.