In This Article:
When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. Long term dotdigital Group Plc (LON:DOTD) shareholders would be well aware of this, since the stock is up 223% in five years. It's even up 7.3% in the last week. The company reported its financial results recently; you can catch up on the latest numbers by reading our company report.
View our latest analysis for dotdigital Group
While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.
During five years of share price growth, dotdigital Group achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 24% per year. So the EPS growth rate is rather close to the annualized share price gain of 26% per year. Therefore one could conclude that sentiment towards the shares hasn't morphed very much. In fact, the share price seems to largely reflect the EPS growth.
You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
We know that dotdigital Group has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.
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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of dotdigital Group, it has a TSR of 236% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!
A Different Perspective
It's nice to see that dotdigital Group shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 17% over the last year. That's including the dividend. However, the TSR over five years, coming in at 27% per year, is even more impressive. The pessimistic view would be that be that the stock has its best days behind it, but on the other hand the price might simply be moderating while the business itself continues to execute. Before forming an opinion on dotdigital Group you might want to consider these 3 valuation metrics.