For many, the main point of investing in the stock market is to achieve spectacular returns. And we've seen some truly amazing gains over the years. To wit, the First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNC.A) share price has soared 366% over five years. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 21% gain in the last three months. This could be related to the recent financial results, released recently - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

View our latest analysis for First Citizens BancShares

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...' 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.

Over half a decade, First Citizens BancShares managed to grow its earnings per share at 37% a year. This EPS growth is remarkably close to the 36% average annual increase in the share price. That suggests that the market sentiment around the company hasn't changed much over that time. In fact, the share price seems to largely reflect the EPS growth.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It is of course excellent to see how First Citizens BancShares has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. This free interactive report on First Citizens BancShares' balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. In the case of First Citizens BancShares, it has a TSR of 374% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!