A diverse portfolio of stocks will always have winners and losers. But the goal is to pick stocks that do better than average. StarHub Ltd (SGX:CC3) has done well over the last year, with the stock price up 10% beating the market return of 9.5% (not including dividends). On the other hand, longer term shareholders have had a tougher run, with the stock falling 4.0% in three years.

Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.

View our latest analysis for StarHub

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. 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).

StarHub was able to grow EPS by 111% in the last twelve months. It's fair to say that the share price gain of 10% did not keep pace with the EPS growth. So it seems like the market has cooled on StarHub, despite the growth. Interesting.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We know that StarHub 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?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. As it happens, StarHub's TSR for the last 1 year was 17%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

StarHub provided a TSR of 17% over the year (including dividends). That's fairly close to the broader market return. That gain looks pretty satisfying, and it is even better than the five-year TSR of 4% per year. It is possible that management foresight will bring growth well into the future, even if the share price slows down. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with StarHub , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.