Blue Dart Express' (NSE:BLUEDART) 22% CAGR outpaced the company's earnings growth over the same three-year period

One simple way to benefit from the stock market is to buy an index fund. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. Just take a look at Blue Dart Express Limited (NSE:BLUEDART), which is up 81%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 48% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 19% , including dividends .

Since it's been a strong week for Blue Dart Express shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for Blue Dart Express

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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.

During three years of share price growth, Blue Dart Express moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we'd expect the share price to be up.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It is of course excellent to see how Blue Dart Express has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. This free interactive report on Blue Dart Express' balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Blue Dart Express, it has a TSR of 83% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Blue Dart Express shareholders gained a total return of 19% during the year. But that return falls short of the market. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 4% over half a decade This suggests the company might be improving over time. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that Blue Dart Express is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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 IN 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.