Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT), since the last five years saw the share price fall 14%. It’s up 2.1% in the last seven days.
See our latest analysis for Haverty Furniture Companies
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 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).
Looking back five years, both Haverty Furniture Companies’s share price and EPS declined; the latter at a rate of 0.3% per year. This reduction in EPS is less than the 3.1% annual reduction in the share price. This implies that the market is more cautious about the business these days.
The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
We know that Haverty Furniture Companies 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. As it happens, Haverty Furniture Companies’s TSR for the last 5 years was 7.3%, 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
Haverty Furniture Companies provided a TSR of 8.5% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 1.4% per year over five year. It is possible that returns will improve along with the business fundamentals. 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. For instance, we’ve identified 1 warning sign for Haverty Furniture Companies that you should be aware of.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
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