Dürr (ETR:DUE shareholders incur further losses as stock declines 4.8% this week, taking five-year losses to 11%

Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Dürr Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:DUE) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 20% over a half decade. Even worse, it's down 8.5% in about a month, which isn't fun at all. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

Given the past week has been tough on shareholders, let's investigate the fundamentals and see what we can learn.

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To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Over five years Dürr's earnings per share dropped significantly, falling to a loss, with the share price also lower. The recent extraordinary items contributed to this situation. At present it's hard to make valid comparisons between EPS and the share price. However, we can say we'd expect to see a falling share price in this scenario.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Dürr, it has a TSR of -11% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

Dürr provided a TSR of 15% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 2% per year, over five years. It could well be that the business is stabilizing. 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 Dürr that you should be aware of.

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

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.