These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the Hilton Food Group plc (LON:HFG) share price is up 28% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market return of around 7.0% (not including dividends). If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! Unfortunately the longer term returns are not so good, with the stock falling 21% in the last three years.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

See our latest analysis for Hilton Food Group

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Hilton Food Group was able to grow EPS by 104% in the last twelve months. This EPS growth is significantly higher than the 28% increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market isn't as excited about Hilton Food Group as it was before. This could be an opportunity.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, Hilton Food Group's TSR for the last 1 year was 34%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Hilton Food Group shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 34% over one year. That's including the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 2% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Hilton Food Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Hilton Food Group you should be aware of.