The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But Dynatrace, Inc. (NYSE:DT) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 31% over five years, which is below the market return. However, more recent buyers should be happy with the increase of 23% over the last year.

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.

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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 imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

During the five years of share price growth, Dynatrace moved from a loss to profitability. That’s generally thought to be a genuine positive, so investors may expect to see an increasing share price. Given that the company made a profit three years ago, but not five years ago, it is worth looking at the share price returns over the last three years, too. We can see that the Dynatrace share price is up 23% in the last three years. In the same period, EPS is up 106% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 7% average annual increase in the share price over the same three years. Therefore, it seems the market has moderated its expectations for growth, somewhat.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It is of course excellent to see how Dynatrace has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. If you are thinking of buying or selling Dynatrace stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

It’s good to see that Dynatrace has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 23% in the last twelve months. That’s better than the annualised return of 6% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Given the share price momentum remains strong, it might be worth taking a closer look at the stock, lest you miss an opportunity. 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. For instance, we’ve identified 1 warning sign for Dynatrace that you should be aware of.