For many, the main point of investing in the stock market is to achieve spectacular returns. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. To wit, the United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) share price has soared 343% over five years. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. It's also good to see the share price up 48% over the last quarter. This could be related to the recent financial results, released recently - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 3.5%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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.

Over half a decade, United States Lime & Minerals managed to grow its earnings per share at 31% a year. So the EPS growth rate is rather close to the annualized share price gain of 35% per year. Therefore one could conclude that sentiment towards the shares hasn't morphed very much. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Dive deeper into United States Lime & Minerals' key metrics by checking this interactive graph of United States Lime & Minerals's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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. As it happens, United States Lime & Minerals' TSR for the last 5 years was 379%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that United States Lime & Minerals shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 96% over the last year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That gain is better than the annual TSR over five years, which is 37%. Therefore it seems like sentiment around the company has been positive lately. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. If you would like to research United States Lime & Minerals in more detail then you might want to take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in the company.

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of undervalued companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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.