Investing in Starwood Property Trust (NYSE:STWD) three years ago would have delivered you a 4.6% gain

Simply Wall St · 10/21 13:06

Many investors define successful investing as beating the market average over the long term. But if you try your hand at stock picking, you risk returning less than the market. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term Starwood Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE:STWD) shareholders, since the share price is down 21% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 22%.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

Check out our latest analysis for Starwood Property Trust

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.

Starwood Property Trust saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 15% per year, over the last three years. This fall in the EPS is worse than the 8% compound annual share price fall. So, despite the prior disappointment, shareholders must have some confidence the situation will improve, longer term.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

earnings-per-share-growth
NYSE:STWD Earnings Per Share Growth October 21st 2024

Dive deeper into Starwood Property Trust's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Starwood Property Trust's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Starwood Property Trust, it has a TSR of 4.6% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Starwood Property Trust provided a TSR of 25% over the last twelve months. But that was short of the market average. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 6% 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 Starwood Property Trust better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 5 warning signs for Starwood Property Trust (2 don't sit too well with us!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps 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 American exchanges.