By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But many of us dare to dream of bigger returns, and build a portfolio ourselves. Just take a look at Knorr-Bremse AG (ETR:KBX), which is up 34%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 16% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 29% in the last year, including dividends.

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 3 years and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

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To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. 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 the three years of share price growth, Knorr-Bremse actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) drop 9.6% per year.

This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. Given this situation, it makes sense to look at other metrics too.

The modest 2.0% dividend yield is unlikely to be propping up the share price. It may well be that Knorr-Bremse revenue growth rate of 6.2% over three years has convinced shareholders to believe in a brighter future. If the company is being managed for the long term good, today's shareholders might be right to hold on.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

Knorr-Bremse is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Knorr-Bremse will earn in the future (free analyst consensus estimates)

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Knorr-Bremse the TSR over the last 3 years was 44%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.