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Vonovia SE (ETR:VNA) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 12% in the last month. But if you look at the last five years the returns have not been good. You would have done a lot better buying an index fund, since the stock has dropped 39% in that half decade.
While the stock has risen 4.6% in the past week but long term shareholders are still in the red, let's see what the fundamentals can tell us.
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).
We know that Vonovia has been profitable in the past. On the other hand, it reported a trailing twelve months loss, suggesting it isn't reliably profitable. Other metrics may better explain the share price move.
We note that the dividend has fallen in the last five years, so that may have contributed to the share price decline.
The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
Take a more thorough look at Vonovia's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.
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 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. In the case of Vonovia, it has a TSR of -22% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
Vonovia shareholders are up 8.6% for the year (even including dividends). Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 4% per year, over five years. It could well be that the business is stabilizing. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Vonovia better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Vonovia is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is significant...