Investors five-year losses grow to 65% as the stock sheds UK£74m this past week

Generally speaking long term investing is the way to go. But along the way some stocks are going to perform badly. To wit, the TP ICAP Group PLC (LON:TCAP) share price managed to fall 74% over five long years. That's not a lot of fun for true believers. And some of the more recent buyers are probably worried, too, with the stock falling 45% in the last year. Even worse, it's down 16% in about a month, which isn't fun at all.

After losing 7.0% this past week, it's worth investigating the company's fundamentals to see what we can infer from past performance.

Check out our latest analysis for TP ICAP Group

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, TP ICAP Group's TSR for the last 5 years was -65%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 10.0% in the last year, TP ICAP Group shareholders lost 43% (even including dividends). Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 10% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand TP ICAP Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for TP ICAP Group you should be aware of.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

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