In This Article:
It hasn't been the best quarter for Traton SE (ETR:8TRA) shareholders, since the share price has fallen 15% in that time. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last year have been pleasing. To wit, it had solidly beat the market, up 55%.
Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.
View our latest analysis for Traton
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.
During the last year Traton grew its earnings per share (EPS) by 107%. This EPS growth is significantly higher than the 55% increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market isn't as excited about Traton as it was before. This could be an opportunity. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 5.54.
You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).
We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. This free interactive report on Traton's 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Traton's TSR for the last 1 year was 63%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
We're pleased to report that Traton shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 63% over one year. That's including the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 6% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Traton better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Traton (including 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) .