Bharat Rasayan's (NSE:BHARATRAS) five-year earnings growth trails the splendid shareholder returns

The most you can lose on any stock (assuming you don't use leverage) is 100% of your money. But on the bright side, if you buy shares in a high quality company at the right price, you can gain well over 100%. Long term Bharat Rasayan Limited (NSE:BHARATRAS) shareholders would be well aware of this, since the stock is up 161% in five years. On top of that, the share price is up 40% in about a quarter. The company reported its financial results recently; you can catch up on the latest numbers by reading our company report.

Since the stock has added ₹8.4b to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Bharat Rasayan

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 half a decade, Bharat Rasayan managed to grow its earnings per share at 1.0% a year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 21% per year, over the same period. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. That's not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

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

A Different Perspective

Bharat Rasayan provided a TSR of 44% over the year (including dividends). That's fairly close to the broader market return. Most would be happy with a gain, and it helps that the year's return is actually better than the average return over five years, which was 21%. Even if the share price growth slows down from here, there's a good chance that this is business worth watching in the long term. 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 2 warning signs for Bharat Rasayan that you should be aware of before investing here.

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of undervalued 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 Indian 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.