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. For example, the EnviTec Biogas AG (ETR:ETG) share price has soared 206% in the last half decade. Most would be very happy with that. It's also up 15% in about a month. This could be related to the recent financial results that were recently released - you could check the most recent data by reading our company report.

Since it's been a strong week for EnviTec Biogas shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for EnviTec Biogas

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, EnviTec Biogas achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 58% per year. The EPS growth is more impressive than the yearly share price gain of 25% over the same period. So one could conclude that the broader market has become more cautious towards the stock. The reasonably low P/E ratio of 8.38 also suggests market apprehension.

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 EnviTec Biogas' earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. As it happens, EnviTec Biogas' TSR for the last 5 years was 289%, 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

Investors in EnviTec Biogas had a tough year, with a total loss of 22% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 7.4%. 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. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 31%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand EnviTec Biogas better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with EnviTec Biogas .