These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But you can significantly boost your returns by picking above-average stocks. To wit, the Zions Bancorporation, National Association (NASDAQ:ZION) share price is 48% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market return of around 23% (not including dividends) in the same period. That's a solid performance by our standards! Zooming out, the stock is actually down 22% 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 Zions Bancorporation National Association

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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.

During the last year, Zions Bancorporation National Association actually saw its earnings per share drop 32%.

This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

Zions Bancorporation National Association's revenue actually dropped 6.0% over last year. So using a snapshot of key business metrics doesn't give us a good picture of why the market is bidding up the stock.

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

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. If you are thinking of buying or selling Zions Bancorporation National Association stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit 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. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Zions Bancorporation National Association's TSR for the last 1 year was 55%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!