Shareholders Of Deutsche Wohnen (ETR:DWNI) Must Be Happy With Their 101% Total Return

Stock pickers are generally looking for stocks that will outperform the broader market. And in our experience, buying the right stocks can give your wealth a significant boost. To wit, the Deutsche Wohnen share price has climbed 81% in five years, easily topping the market return of 27% (ignoring dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 17% in the last year , including dividends .

View our latest analysis for Deutsche Wohnen

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 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 five years of share price growth, Deutsche Wohnen actually saw its EPS drop 2.5% per year.

So it's hard to argue that the earnings per share are the best metric to judge the company, as it may not be optimized for profits at this point. Therefore, it's worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movements.

On the other hand, Deutsche Wohnen's revenue is growing nicely, at a compound rate of 14% over the last five years. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized 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. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Deutsche Wohnen, it has a TSR of 101% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Deutsche Wohnen shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 17% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 15%. 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Deutsche Wohnen better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Deutsche Wohnen (including 2 which make us uncomfortable) .

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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