In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Midland States Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSBI) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 14% over a half decade.

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

View our latest analysis for Midland States Bancorp

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 five years over which the share price declined, Midland States Bancorp's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 2.5% each year. Notably, the share price has fallen at 3% per year, fairly close to the change in the EPS. This implies that the market has had a fairly steady view of the stock. Rather, the share price change has reflected changes in earnings per share.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

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

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 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for Midland States Bancorp the TSR over the last 5 years was 10%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Midland States Bancorp provided a TSR of 15% over the last twelve months. But that return falls short of the market. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 2% over half a decade This suggests the company might be improving over time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Midland States Bancorp better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Midland States Bancorp that you should be aware of before investing here.