In This Article:
By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But if you buy good businesses at attractive prices, your portfolio returns could exceed the average market return. For example, Sunway Berhad (KLSE:SUNWAY) shareholders have seen the share price rise 37% over three years, well in excess of the market decline (4.3%, not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 21% in the last year , including dividends .
So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.
See our latest analysis for Sunway Berhad
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just 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.
Sunway Berhad was able to grow its EPS at 26% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is higher than the 11% average annual increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market has moderated its expectations for growth, somewhat.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
We know that Sunway Berhad has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.
What About Dividends?
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Sunway Berhad, it has a TSR of 47% for the last 3 years. 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!
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that Sunway Berhad has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 21% in the last twelve months. Of course, that includes the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 8%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. 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. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Sunway Berhad (including 1 which is significant) .