Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in E&P Financial Group Limited (ASX:EP1), since the last five years saw the share price fall 41%. On the other hand the share price has bounced 6.0% over the last week.

Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for E&P Financial Group

E&P Financial Group wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.

In the last five years E&P Financial Group saw its revenue shrink by 9.0% per year. That puts it in an unattractive cohort, to put it mildly. It seems pretty reasonable to us that the share price dipped 7% per year in that time. We doubt many shareholders are delighted with this share price performance. Risk averse investors probably wouldn't like this one much.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We'd be remiss not to mention the difference between E&P Financial Group's total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price return. The TSR attempts to capture the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested) as well as any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings offered to shareholders. Dividends have been really beneficial for E&P Financial Group shareholders, and that cash payout explains why its total shareholder loss of 31%, over the last 5 years, isn't as bad as the share price return.

A Different Perspective

E&P Financial Group provided a TSR of 4.7% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 6% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for E&P Financial Group you should be aware of, and 1 of them is significant.