Did You Participate In Any Of Cargojet's (TSE:CJT) Incredible 505% Return?

Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. For example, the Cargojet Inc. (TSE:CJT) share price is up a whopping 472% in the last half decade, a handsome return for long term holders. And this is just one example of the epic gains achieved by some long term investors. Better yet, the share price has risen 9.8% in the last week.

View our latest analysis for Cargojet

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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).

During the last half decade, Cargojet became profitable. Sometimes, the start of profitability is a major inflection point that can signal fast earnings growth to come, which in turn justifies very strong share price gains.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

This free interactive report on Cargojet'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. 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. As it happens, Cargojet's TSR for the last 5 years was 505%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Cargojet provided a TSR of 25% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, the longer term returns (running at about 43% a year, over half a decade) look better. Maybe the share price is just taking a breather while the business executes on its growth strategy. 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 example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Cargojet that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CA exchanges.

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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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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