These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, the Zhongmin Energy Co., Ltd. (SHSE:600163) share price is 16% higher than it was five years ago, which is more than the market average. In comparison, the share price is down 7.4% in a year.

Since the stock has added CN¥723m to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' 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.

Over half a decade, Zhongmin Energy managed to grow its earnings per share at 25% a year. This EPS growth is higher than the 3% average annual increase in the share price. So one could conclude that the broader market has become more cautious towards the stock.

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

This free interactive report on Zhongmin Energy's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Zhongmin Energy's TSR for the last 5 years was 18%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, Zhongmin Energy shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 5.7% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 8.2%. Of course, the long term returns are far more important and the good news is that over five years, the stock has returned 3% for each year. It could be that the business is just facing some short term problems, but shareholders should keep a close eye on the fundamentals. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Zhongmin Energy better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Zhongmin Energy that you should be aware of.

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 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.