Legal & General Group's (LON:LGEN) underlying earnings growth outpaced the notable return generated for shareholders over the past year
If you want to compound wealth in the stock market, you can do so by buying an index fund. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the Legal & General Group Plc (LON:LGEN) share price is up 49% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market return of around 22% (not including dividends). If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! The longer term returns have not been as good, with the stock price only 2.2% higher than it was three years ago.
Although Legal & General Group has shed UK£659m from its market cap this week, let's take a look at its longer term fundamental trends and see if they've driven returns.
See our latest analysis for Legal & General Group
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).
Legal & General Group was able to grow EPS by 70% in the last twelve months. This EPS growth is significantly higher than the 49% increase in the share price. So it seems like the market has cooled on Legal & General Group, despite the growth. Interesting. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 7.62.
The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Legal & General Group the TSR over the last 1 year was 58%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that Legal & General Group has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 58% in the last twelve months. Of course, that includes the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 11% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Legal & General Group better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Legal & General Group that you should be aware of before investing here.
If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB exchanges.
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.
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