When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. But C&F Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CFFI) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 20% over five years, which is below the market return. Over the last twelve months the stock price has risen a very respectable 11%.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

View our latest analysis for C&F Financial

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...' By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

During five years of share price growth, C&F Financial achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 1.9% per year. This EPS growth is slower than the share price growth of 4% per year, over the same period. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. That's not necessarily surprising considering the five-year track record of earnings growth.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

What About Dividends?

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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, C&F Financial's TSR for the last 5 years was 42%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

C&F Financial provided a TSR of 15% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 7% over half a decade This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. Most investors take the time to check the data on insider transactions. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.