Plumas Bancorp (NASDAQ:PLBC) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 14% in the last week. On the bright side the share price is up over the last half decade. In that time, it is up 65%, which isn't bad, but is below the market return of 95%.

In light of the stock dropping 14% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive five-year return.

View our latest analysis for Plumas Bancorp

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During five years of share price growth, Plumas Bancorp achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 11% per year. That makes the EPS growth particularly close to the yearly share price growth of 11%. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. Indeed, it would appear the share price is reacting to the EPS.

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

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Plumas Bancorp, it has a TSR of 85% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Plumas Bancorp shareholders gained a total return of 7.5% during the year. But that was short of the market average. If we look back over five years, the returns are even better, coming in at 13% per year for five years. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Plumas Bancorp better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Plumas Bancorp has 2 warning signs (and 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) we think you should know about.