The Almarai (TADAWUL:2280) Share Price Is Up 14% And Shareholders Are Holding On

If you want to compound wealth in the stock market, you can do so by buying an index fund. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. To wit, the Almarai Company (TADAWUL:2280) share price is 14% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market decline of around 2.7% (not including dividends) in the same period. That's a solid performance by our standards! Unfortunately the longer term returns are not so good, with the stock falling 0.9% in the last three years.

View our latest analysis for Almarai

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 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).

During the last year Almarai grew its earnings per share (EPS) by 5.5%. The share price gain of 14% certainly outpaced the EPS growth. This indicates that the market is now more optimistic about the stock.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Almarai's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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. As it happens, Almarai's TSR for the last year was 16%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Almarai shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 16% over one year. That's including the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 4%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Almarai better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Almarai that you should be aware of before investing here.

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 SA 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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