Did You Participate In Any Of ESTec's (KOSDAQ:069510) Respectable 45% Return?

If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But ESTec Corporation (KOSDAQ:069510) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 13% over five years, which is below the market return. Zooming in, the stock is actually down 1.3% in the last year.

View our latest analysis for ESTec

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.

ESTec's earnings per share are down 3.2% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

Since EPS is down a bit, and the share price is up, it's probably that the market previously had some concerns about the company, but the reality has been better than feared. Having said that, if the EPS falls continue we'd be surprised to see a sustained increase in share price.

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

This free interactive report on ESTec's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for ESTec the TSR over the last 5 years was 45%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

ESTec provided a TSR of 4.7% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. On the bright side, the longer term returns (running at about 8% a year, over half a decade) look better. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for ESTec you should be aware of.

We will like ESTec better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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