The DiamondRock Hospitality (NYSE:DRH) Share Price Is Up 20% And Shareholders Are Holding On
Buying a low-cost index fund will get you the average market return. But in any diversified portfolio of stocks, you'll see some that fall short of the average. For example, the DiamondRock Hospitality Company (NYSE:DRH) share price return of 20% over three years lags the market return in the same period. Disappointingly, the share price is down 2.5% in the last year.
Check out our latest analysis for DiamondRock Hospitality
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 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).
During three years of share price growth, DiamondRock Hospitality achieved compound earnings per share growth of 0.06% per year. This EPS growth is lower than the 6.4% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that the market is feeling more optimistic on the stock, after the last few years of progress. It is quite common to see investors become enamoured with a business, after a few years of solid progress.
You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).
This free interactive report on DiamondRock Hospitality's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
What About Dividends?
It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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, DiamondRock Hospitality's TSR for the last 3 years was 39%, 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
DiamondRock Hospitality provided a TSR of 2.1% over the last twelve months. But that return falls short of the market. On the bright side, the longer term returns (running at about 2.5% a year, over half a decade) look better. Maybe the share price is just taking a breather while the business executes on its growth strategy. If you would like to research DiamondRock Hospitality in more detail then you might want to take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in the company.
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 US exchanges.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
