As an investor, it is worth aiming for your overall portfolio to be better than the market average. But it is almost certain that you will sometimes buy stocks that do not meet the market average return. Unfortunately, that has been the case for some time Eversource energy (NYSE:ES) shareholders as the share price is down 25% over the last three years, well below the market return of around 25%.

While the shares are up 3.1% in the past week, but long-term shareholders are still in the red, let’s see what the fundamentals can tell us.

Check out our latest analysis for Eversource Energy

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

Eversource Energy saw its stock price fall during the three years when earnings per share also fell, falling to a loss. This was partly due to extraordinary items impacting earnings. Because the company has become loss-making, it is difficult to compare the change in earnings per share with the change in the share price. However, we can say that we expect a falling share price in this scenario.

Below you can see how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values ​​by clicking on the image).

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

It’s important to consider the total shareholder return and share price return for any stock. While 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. Arguably the TSR gives a more comprehensive view of the return generated by a stock. Coincidentally, Eversource Energy’s TSR for the last three years was -16%, which is higher than the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have therefore boosted the share price total shareholder returns.

Eversource Energy shareholders are up 13% this year (even including dividends). But that return lags behind that of the market. But at least that’s still a win! Over five years, the TSR is a reduction of 1.5% per year, over a five-year period. So this could be a sign that the company has turned its fortunes around. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a measure of business performance. But to gain real insight, we must also consider other information. Example: We’ve seen it 3 warning signs for Eversource Energy things to keep in mind, and 2 of them are a bit off-putting.

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