The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. Furthermore, you’d generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. But MSC Industrial Direct Co., Inc. (NYSE:MSM) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 28% over five years, which is below the market return. Zooming in, the stock is actually down 18% in the last year.

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

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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. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company’s share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

During five years of share price growth, MSC Industrial Direct actually saw its EPS drop 4.5% per year.

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. Since the change in EPS doesn’t seem to correlate with the change in share price, it’s worth taking a look at other metrics.

In fact, the dividend has increased over time, which is a positive. Maybe dividend investors have helped support the share price. The revenue growth of about 5.1% per year might also encourage buyers.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It’s good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That’s a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think MSC Industrial Direct will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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, MSC Industrial Direct’s TSR for the last 5 years was 61%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!