If You Had Bought FoundPac Group Berhad (KLSE:FPGROUP) Shares Three Years Ago You'd Have Earned 96% Returns

By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. Just take a look at FoundPac Group Berhad (KLSE:FPGROUP), which is up 96%, over three years, soundly beating the market decline of 12% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 78% , including dividends .

View our latest analysis for FoundPac Group Berhad

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 way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

FoundPac Group Berhad was able to grow its EPS at 11% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is lower than the 25% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that the market is feeling more optimistic on the stock, after the last few years of progress. It is quite common to see investors become enamoured with a business, after a few years of solid progress.

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

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

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. We note that for FoundPac Group Berhad the TSR over the last 3 years was 114%, 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

Pleasingly, FoundPac Group Berhad's total shareholder return last year was 78%. And yes, that does include the dividend. That's better than the annualized TSR of 29% over the last three years. These improved returns may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. 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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with FoundPac Group Berhad .

Of course FoundPac Group Berhad 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 MY 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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