When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. Furthermore, you’d generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ:EXC) share price is up 26% in the last five years, that’s less than the market return. But if you include dividends then the return is market-beating. However, more recent buyers should be happy with the increase of 22% 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 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…’ By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

Over half a decade, Exelon managed to grow its earnings per share at 0.03% a year. This EPS growth is lower than the 5% average annual increase in the share price. So it’s fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. That’s not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

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

We know that Exelon has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you’re interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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, Exelon’s TSR for the last 5 years was 111%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there’s no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

It’s good to see that Exelon has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 27% in the last twelve months. That’s including the dividend. That’s better than the annualised return of 16% 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. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that Exelon is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is concerning…