As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But in any portfolio, there are likely to be some stocks that fall short of that benchmark. We regret to report that long term APAC Realty Limited (SGX:CLN) shareholders have had that experience, with the share price dropping 54% in three years, versus a market return of about 20%. And the ride hasn't got any smoother in recent times over the last year, with the price 31% lower in that time.

Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for APAC Realty

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. 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 the three years that the share price fell, APAC Realty's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 25% each year. This fall in EPS isn't far from the rate of share price decline, which was 23% per year. So it seems like sentiment towards the stock hasn't changed all that much over time. In this case, it seems that the EPS is guiding the share price.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

This free interactive report on APAC Realty's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of APAC Realty, it has a TSR of -42% 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.

APAC Realty shareholders are down 27% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 11%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 1.9%, each year, over five years. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Even so, be aware that APAC Realty is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

But note: APAC Realty may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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