Covivio (EPA:COV) shareholders have endured a 8.5% loss from investing in the stock three years ago

In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But if you try your hand at stock picking, you risk returning less than the market. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term Covivio (EPA:COV) shareholders, since the share price is down 26% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 32%.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

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There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect 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).

Covivio became profitable within the last five years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. So it's worth looking at other metrics to try to understand the share price move.

We note that the dividend has declined - a likely contributor to the share price drop. It doesn't seem like the changes in revenue would have impacted the share price much, but a closer inspection of the data might reveal something.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We know that Covivio has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Covivio will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Covivio the TSR over the last 3 years was -8.5%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Covivio has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 8.9% in the last twelve months. That's including the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 6% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Given the share price momentum remains strong, it might be worth taking a closer look at the stock, lest you miss an opportunity. 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. Even so, be aware that Covivio is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those makes us a bit uncomfortable...

Of course Covivio may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

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