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 MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) share price is up 52% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Some buyers are laughing, though, with an increase of 43% in the last year.

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 5 years and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder 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 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.

MetLife's earnings per share are down 10.0% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

Essentially, it doesn't seem likely that investors are focused on EPS. Because earnings per share don't seem to match up with the share price, we'll take a look at other metrics instead.

It is not great to see that revenue has dropped by 0.1% per year over five years. It certainly surprises us that the share price is up, but perhaps a closer examination of the data will yield answers.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

MetLife is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for MetLife in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for MetLife the TSR over the last 5 years was 82%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that MetLife shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 48% over the last year. That's including the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 13% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. 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 MetLife better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that MetLife is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

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