Uniquest (KRX:077500) investors are up 10% in the past week, but earnings have declined over the last five years

If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. But Uniquest Corporation (KRX:077500) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 54% over five years, which is below the market return. But if you include dividends then the return is market-beating. Zooming in, the stock is actually down 21% in the last year.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Uniquest

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

During five years of share price growth, Uniquest actually saw its EPS drop 7.4% per year.

Essentially, it doesn't seem likely that investors are focused on EPS. Because earnings per share don't seem to match up with the share price, we'll take a look at other metrics instead.

In contrast revenue growth of 16% per year is probably viewed as evidence that Uniquest is growing, a real positive. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

This free interactive report on Uniquest's 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. 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 Uniquest the TSR over the last 5 years was 491%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 5.3% in the twelve months, Uniquest shareholders did even worse, losing 19% (even including dividends). However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 43%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. 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. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Uniquest (including 1 which is significant) .

Of course Uniquest 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 South Korean 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.