Shareholders in Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) are in the red if they invested five years ago – Yahoo Finance

In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But even the best stock picker will only win with some selections. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC), since the last five years saw the share price fall 57%. Furthermore, it's down 14% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders. But this could be related to the weak market, which is down 6.1% in the same period.

Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.

View our latest analysis for Kraft Heinz

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. 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.

During five years of share price growth, Kraft Heinz moved from a loss to profitability. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.

We note that the dividend has fallen in the last five years, so that may have contributed to the share price decline. The revenue decline of 0.1% per year wouldn't have helped. So the the weak dividend and revenue data could well help explain the soft share price.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

earnings-and-revenue-growth

Kraft Heinz is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. If you are thinking of buying or selling Kraft Heinz stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits.

Story continues

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. In the case of Kraft Heinz, it has a TSR of -46% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

While it's certainly disappointing to see that Kraft Heinz shares lost 5.2% throughout the year, that wasn't as bad as the market loss of 22%. Of far more concern is the 8% p.a. loss served to shareholders over the last five years. This sort of share price action isn't particularly encouraging, but at least the losses are slowing. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Kraft Heinz (1 is potentially serious!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

But note: Kraft Heinz 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 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.

Join A Paid User Research SessionYoull receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here

Go here to see the original:

Shareholders in Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) are in the red if they invested five years ago - Yahoo Finance