Reflecting on Sing Investments & Finance's (SGX:S35) Share Price Returns Over The Last Three Years

It can certainly be frustrating when a stock does not perform as hoped. But when the market is down, you're bound to have some losers. While the Sing Investments & Finance Limited (SGX:S35) share price is down 15% in the last three years, the total return to shareholders (which includes dividends) was -2.2%. That's better than the market which declined 11% over the last three years.

View our latest analysis for Sing Investments & Finance

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.

Sing Investments & Finance saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 4.7% per year, over the last three years. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 5% average annual decrease in the share price. That suggests that the market sentiment around the company hasn't changed much over that time, despite the disappointment. In this case, it seems that the EPS is guiding the share price.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

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 incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Sing Investments & Finance, it has a TSR of -2.2% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, Sing Investments & Finance shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 3.1% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 10%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 6%, each year, over five years. In the best case scenario the last year is just a temporary blip on the journey to a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Sing Investments & Finance better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Sing Investments & Finance that you should be aware of.

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