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In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Canadian Utilities Limited (TSE:CU) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 11% over a half decade.
See our latest analysis for Canadian Utilities
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).
While the share price declined over five years, Canadian Utilities actually managed to increase EPS by an average of 1.4% per year. 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 possibly, the market was previously very optimistic, so the stock has disappointed, despite improving EPS.
Given that EPS has increased, but the share price has fallen, it's fair to say that market sentiment around the stock has become more negative. Having said that, if the EPS gains continue we'd expect the share price to improve, longer term.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
This free interactive report on Canadian Utilities' earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
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 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Canadian Utilities the TSR over the last 5 years was 11%, 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
Canadian Utilities shareholders are up 6.4% for the year (even including dividends). But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 2% over half a decade This suggests the company might be improving over time. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Take risks, for example - Canadian Utilities has 4 warning signs (and 1 which is a bit concerning) we think you should know about.