By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But many of us dare to dream of bigger returns, and build a portfolio ourselves. Just take a look at Unilever PLC (LON:ULVR), which is up 33%, over three years, soundly beating the market decline of 6.1% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 26%, 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.

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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...' By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

During the three years of share price growth, Unilever actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) drop 0.4% per year.

Companies are not always focussed on EPS growth in the short term, and looking at how the share price has reacted, we don't think EPS is the most important metric for Unilever at the moment. Therefore, it makes sense to look into other metrics.

It could be that the revenue growth of 3.8% per year is viewed as evidence that Unilever is growing. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth, and maybe shareholder's faith in better days ahead will be rewarded.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Unilever 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 Unilever 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Unilever, it has a TSR of 48% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.