Yahoo Finance Can You Imagine How Tesco's (LON:TSCO) Shareholders Feel About The 36% Share Price Increase?
By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. For example, the Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) share price is up 36% in the last three years, clearly besting the market decline of around 20% (not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 4.8% , including dividends .
View our latest analysis for Tesco
While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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).
Tesco was able to grow its EPS at 122% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is higher than the 11% average annual increase in the share price. So one could reasonably conclude that the market has cooled on the stock.
You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
It is of course excellent to see how Tesco has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.
What About Dividends?
As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Tesco, it has a TSR of 43% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that Tesco has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 4.8% in the last twelve months. Of course, that includes the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 3.4% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Tesco better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Tesco you should be aware of, and 1 of them is potentially serious.
We will like Tesco 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 GB exchanges.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.
