Most people feel a little frustrated if a stock they own goes down in price. But often it is not a reflection of the fundamental business performance. The Easterly Government Properties, Inc. (NYSE:DEA) is down 11% over a year, but the total shareholder return is -6.4% once you include the dividend. That's better than the market which declined 16% over the last year. The silver lining (for longer term investors) is that the stock is still 5.1% higher than it was three years ago.

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.

See our latest analysis for Easterly Government Properties

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.

Even though the Easterly Government Properties share price is down over the year, its EPS actually improved. It's quite possible that growth expectations may have been unreasonable in the past.

It's fair to say that the share price does not seem to be reflecting the EPS growth. So it's well worth checking out some other metrics, too.

Easterly Government Properties' dividend seems healthy to us, so we doubt that the yield is a concern for the market. The revenue trend doesn't seem to explain why the share price is down. Unless, of course, the market was expecting a revenue uptick.

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

It is of course excellent to see how Easterly Government Properties has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. If you are thinking of buying or selling Easterly Government Properties stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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 Easterly Government Properties, it has a TSR of -6.4% for the last 1 year. 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!