Many investors define successful investing as beating the market average over the long term. But in any portfolio, there are likely to be some stocks that fall short of that benchmark. We regret to report that long term Springfield Properties Plc (LON:SPR) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 24% in three years, versus a market return of about 27%.

Now let’s have a look at the company’s fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

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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 flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During the three years that the share price fell, Springfield Properties’ earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 13% each year. This fall in the EPS is worse than the 9% compound annual share price fall. So the market may not be too worried about the EPS figure, at the moment — or it may have previously priced some of the drop in.

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

Dive deeper into Springfield Properties’ key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Springfield Properties’s earnings, revenue and cash flow.

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Springfield Properties, it has a TSR of -19% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

Springfield Properties provided a TSR of 4.8% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, that’s still a gain, and it’s actually better than the average return of 4% over half a decade This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. It’s always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Springfield Properties better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We’ve spotted 1 warning sign for Springfield Properties you should be aware of.