It's nice to see the Kohl's Corporation (NYSE:KSS) share price up 13% in a week. But that cannot eclipse the less-than-impressive returns over the last three years. Truth be told the share price declined 55% in three years and that return, Dear Reader, falls short of what you could have got from passive investing with an index fund.

While the last three years has been tough for Kohl's shareholders, this past week has shown signs of promise. So let's look at the longer term fundamentals and see if they've been the driver of the negative returns.

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 imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Kohl's became profitable within the last five years. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. So it's worth looking at other metrics to try to understand the share price move.

We note that the dividend seems healthy enough, so that probably doesn't explain the share price drop. Kohl's has maintained its top line over three years, so we doubt that has shareholders worried. So it might be worth looking at how revenue growth over time, in greater detail.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Kohl's is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Kohl's in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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, Kohl's' TSR for the last 3 years was -46%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

Kohl's provided a TSR of 22% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it is certainly better than the yearly loss of about 6% endured over half a decade. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Kohl's better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Kohl's (including 1 which can't be ignored) .

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps that insiders are buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com