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It might seem bad, but the worst that can happen when you buy a stock (without leverage) is that its share price goes to zero. But when you pick a company that is really flourishing, you can make more than 100%. For instance the Yancoal Australia Ltd (ASX:YAL) share price is 229% higher than it was three years ago. Most would be happy with that. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 24% gain in the last three months.
Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.
Check out our latest analysis for Yancoal Australia
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.
Yancoal Australia became profitable within the last three years. Given the importance of this milestone, it's not overly surprising that the share price has increased strongly.
You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).
It is of course excellent to see how Yancoal Australia has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. This free interactive report on Yancoal Australia's balance sheet strength 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. 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Yancoal Australia, it has a TSR of 424% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!
A Different Perspective
It's nice to see that Yancoal Australia shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 69% over the last year. That's including the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 31%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Yancoal Australia you should be aware of.