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While not a mind-blowing move, it is good to see that the Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust (SGX:D5IU) share price has gained 18% in the last three months. But over the last half decade, the stock has not performed well. You would have done a lot better buying an index fund, since the stock has dropped 42% in that half decade.
See our latest analysis for Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.
Looking back five years, both Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust's share price and EPS declined; the latter at a rate of 11% per year. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 10% average annual decrease in the share price. This suggests that market participants have not changed their view of the company all that much. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
This free interactive report on Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust's earnings, revenue and cash flow 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 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust, it has a TSR of -11% for the last 5 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
Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust shareholders are down 19% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 6.5%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 2.4% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. Keeping this in mind, a solid next step might be to take a look at Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust's dividend track record. This free interactive graph is a great place to start.