DATAGROUP SE (ETR:D6H) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 11% in the last month. But that is minimal compensation for the share price under-performance over the last year. In fact, the price has declined 33% in a year, falling short of the returns you could get by investing in an index fund.

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

Check out our latest analysis for DATAGROUP

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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).

During the unfortunate twelve months during which the DATAGROUP share price fell, it actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 17%. It's quite possible that growth expectations may have been unreasonable in the past.

It's surprising to see the share price fall so much, despite the improved EPS. But we might find some different metrics explain the share price movements better.

Revenue was fairly steady year on year, which isn't usually such a bad thing. However, it is certainly possible the market was expecting an uptick in revenue, and that the share price fall reflects that disappointment.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It is of course excellent to see how DATAGROUP has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. Take a more thorough look at DATAGROUP's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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, DATAGROUP's TSR for the last 1 year was -30%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 3.4% in the last year, DATAGROUP shareholders lost 30% (even including dividends). However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 4% per year over half a decade. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand DATAGROUP better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with DATAGROUP .