When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE:COF) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 65% over five years, which is below the market return. However, more recent buyers should be happy with the increase of 41% over the last year.

Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Capital One Financial

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).

Capital One Financial's earnings per share are down 1.7% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years.

So it's hard to argue that the earnings per share are the best metric to judge the company, as it may not be optimized for profits at this point. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

The modest 1.7% dividend yield is unlikely to be propping up the share price. On the other hand, Capital One Financial's revenue is growing nicely, at a compound rate of 6.9% over the last five years. In that case, the company may be sacrificing current earnings per share to drive growth.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Capital One Financial is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Capital One Financial in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. 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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Capital One Financial's TSR for the last 5 years was 80%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Capital One Financial shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 44% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. That's better than the annualised return of 13% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Capital One Financial better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Capital One Financial you should be aware of.

But note: Capital One Financial 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 American exchanges.

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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.