The most you can lose on any stock (assuming you don’t use leverage) is 100% of your money. But when you pick a company that is really flourishing, you can make more than 100%. Long term Poh Kong Holdings Berhad (KLSE:POHKONG) shareholders would be well aware of this, since the stock is up 201% in five years. In the last week the share price is up 5.6%.

So let’s assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 5 years and see if they’ve moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

View our latest analysis for Poh Kong Holdings Berhad

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it’s a weighing machine. 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.

During five years of share price growth, Poh Kong Holdings Berhad achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 32% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 25% average annual increase in the share price. So one could conclude that the broader market has become more cautious towards the stock. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 3.58.

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

This free interactive report on Poh Kong Holdings Berhad’s earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. It’s fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Poh Kong Holdings Berhad’s TSR for the last 5 years was 227%, 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 nice to see that Poh Kong Holdings Berhad shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 16% over the last year. Of course, that includes the dividend. Having said that, the five-year TSR of 27% a year, is even better. The pessimistic view would be that be that the stock has its best days behind it, but on the other hand the price might simply be moderating while the business itself continues to execute. 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. Case in point: We’ve spotted 2 warning signs for Poh Kong Holdings Berhad you should be aware of.