It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. For example, the United Maritime Corporation (NASDAQ:USEA) share price is down 11% in the last year. That contrasts poorly with the market return of 24%. We wouldn't rush to judgement on United Maritime because we don't have a long term history to look at.

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 United Maritime

While United Maritime made a small profit, in the last year, we think that the market is probably more focussed on the top line growth at the moment. Generally speaking, we'd consider a stock like this alongside loss-making companies, simply because the quantum of the profit is so low. For shareholders to have confidence a company will grow profits significantly, it must grow revenue.

In the last twelve months, United Maritime increased its revenue by 45%. We think that is pretty nice growth. Unfortunately that wasn't good enough to stop the share price dropping 11%. You might even wonder if the share price was previously over-hyped. But if revenue keeps growing, then at a certain point the share price would likely follow.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. We note that for United Maritime the TSR over the last 1 year was -0.9%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While United Maritime shareholders are down 0.9% for the year (even including dividends), the market itself is up 24%. While the aim is to do better than that, it's worth recalling that even great long-term investments sometimes underperform for a year or more. It's worth noting that the last three months did the real damage, with a 2.4% decline. So it seems like some holders have been dumping the stock of late - and that's not bullish. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Even so, be aware that United Maritime is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 3 of those shouldn't be ignored...