The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. Better yet, you’d like to see the share price move up more than the market average. But Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 64% over five years, which is below the market return. But if you include dividends then the return is market-beating. The last year has been disappointing, with the stock price down 9.0% in that time.

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

Trump has pledged to “unleash” American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit.

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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.

Prudential Financial’s earnings per share are down 2.6% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

By glancing at these numbers, we’d posit that the decline in earnings per share is not representative of how the business has changed over the years. Therefore, it’s worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movements.

We note that the dividend is higher than it was previously – always nice to see. Maybe dividend investors have helped support the share price.

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.

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It’s fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Prudential Financial’s TSR for the last 5 years was 110%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

Investors in Prudential Financial had a tough year, with a total loss of 4.7% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 13%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 16% per year over half a decade. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It’s always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Prudential Financial better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we’ve identified 1 warning sign for Prudential Financial that you should be aware of.