Shareholders in U.S. Physical Therapy (NYSE:USPH) are in the red if they invested three years ago

As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But the risk of stock picking is that you will likely buy under-performing companies. We regret to report that long term U.S. Physical Therapy, Inc. (NYSE:USPH) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 27% in three years, versus a market return of about 24%.

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.

View our latest analysis for U.S. Physical Therapy

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 flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Although the share price is down over three years, U.S. Physical Therapy actually managed to grow EPS by 8.6% per year in that time. Given the share price reaction, one might suspect that EPS is not a good guide to the business performance during the period (perhaps due to a one-off loss or gain). Alternatively, growth expectations may have been unreasonable in the past.

It's worth taking a look at other metrics, because the EPS growth doesn't seem to match with the falling share price.

With a rather small yield of just 1.9% we doubt that the stock's share price is based on its dividend. Revenue is actually up 5.0% over the three years, so the share price drop doesn't seem to hinge on revenue, either. It's probably worth investigating U.S. Physical Therapy further; while we may be missing something on this analysis, there might also be an opportunity.

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 like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think U.S. Physical Therapy will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

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 incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of U.S. Physical Therapy, it has a TSR of -24% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, U.S. Physical Therapy shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 7.6% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 18%. Of course, the long term returns are far more important and the good news is that over five years, the stock has returned 3% for each year. In the best case scenario the last year is just a temporary blip on the journey to a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand U.S. Physical Therapy better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that U.S. Physical Therapy is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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 US exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.

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