In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it’s worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But if you try your hand at stock picking, you risk returning less than the market. We regret to report that long term Artesian Resources Corporation (NASDAQ:ARTN.A) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 34% in three years, versus a market return of about 27%.

With that in mind, it’s worth seeing if the company’s underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

View our latest analysis for Artesian Resources

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it’s a weighing machine. 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 three years of share price decline, Artesian Resources actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 2.6% per year. This is quite a puzzle, and suggests there might be something temporarily buoying the share price. Or else the company was over-hyped in the past, and so its growth has disappointed.

It’s pretty reasonable to suspect the market was previously to bullish on the stock, and has since moderated expectations. Looking to other metrics might better explain the share price change.

Revenue is actually up 4.7% over the three years, so the share price drop doesn’t seem to hinge on revenue, either. It’s probably worth investigating Artesian Resources further; while we may be missing something on this analysis, there might also be an opportunity.

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

We’re pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. You can see what analysts are predicting for Artesian Resources in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Artesian Resources the TSR over the last 3 years was -28%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!