Tristel plc (LON:TSTL) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 11% in the last week. But over the last half decade, the stock has not performed well. In fact, the share price is down 32%, which falls well short of the return you could get by buying an index fund.

While the stock has risen 11% in the past week but long term shareholders are still in the red, let's see what the fundamentals can tell us.

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There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect 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).

While the share price declined over five years, Tristel actually managed to increase EPS by an average of 4.2% per year. So it doesn't seem like EPS is a great guide to understanding how the market is valuing the stock. Or possibly, the market was previously very optimistic, so the stock has disappointed, despite improving EPS.

By glancing at these numbers, we'd posit that the the market had expectations of much higher growth, five years ago. Having said that, we might get a better idea of what's going on with the stock by looking at other metrics.

Revenue is actually up 7.8% over the time period. A more detailed examination of the revenue and earnings may or may not explain why the share price languishes; there could be an opportunity.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

We know that Tristel has improved its bottom line over the last three years, but what does the future have in store? This free interactive report on Tristel's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Tristel's TSR for the last 5 years was -23%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!