Yahoo Finance Did You Participate In Any Of TELUS' (TSE:T) Respectable 65% Return?
The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the TELUS Corporation (TSE:T) share price is up 31% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. But if you include dividends then the return is market-beating. Over the last twelve months the stock price has risen a very respectable 18%.
Check out our latest analysis for TELUS
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.
TELUS' earnings per share are down 3.7% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.
By glancing at these numbers, we'd posit that the decline in earnings per share is not representative of how the business has changed over the years. Therefore, it's worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movements.
In fact, the dividend has increased over time, which is a positive. It could be that the company is reaching maturity and dividend investors are buying for the yield. We'd posit that the revenue growth over the last five years, of 4.4% per year, would encourage people to invest.
You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
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. You can see what analysts are predicting for TELUS in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.
What About Dividends?
When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for TELUS the TSR over the last 5 years was 65%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!
A Different Perspective
TELUS shareholders gained a total return of 24% during the year. But that was short of the market average. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 11% per year over five year. It is possible that returns will improve along with the business fundamentals. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand TELUS better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that TELUS is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is potentially serious...
There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies 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 CA exchanges.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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