When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But on a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. For instance, the price of Thunder Software Technology Co.,Ltd. (SZSE:300496) stock is up an impressive 270% over the last five years. It's also up 27% in about a month.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

View our latest analysis for Thunder Software TechnologyLtd

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. 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.

During five years of share price growth, Thunder Software TechnologyLtd achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 42% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 30% average annual increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market has become relatively pessimistic about the company. Having said that, the market is still optimistic, given the P/E ratio of 53.85.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

What About Dividends?

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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Thunder Software TechnologyLtd's TSR for the last 5 years was 275%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

We regret to report that Thunder Software TechnologyLtd shareholders are down 29% for the year (even including dividends). Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 3.8%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 30%, each year, over five years. 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 Thunder Software TechnologyLtd better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Thunder Software TechnologyLtd .

We will like Thunder Software TechnologyLtd better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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