Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:SWKS) stock falls 4.8% in past week as five-year earnings and shareholder returns continue downward trend

Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWKS) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 13% in the last month. But if you look at the last five years the returns have not been good. After all, the share price is down 42% in that time, significantly under-performing the market.

With the stock having lost 4.8% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

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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.

During the five years over which the share price declined, Skyworks Solutions' earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 10.0% each year. This change in EPS is remarkably close to the 10% average annual decrease in the share price. This implies that the market has had a fairly steady view of the stock. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. This free interactive report on Skyworks Solutions' earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Skyworks Solutions' TSR for the last 5 years was -35%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Investors in Skyworks Solutions had a tough year, with a total loss of 23% (including dividends), against a market gain of about 11%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 6% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Skyworks Solutions better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Skyworks Solutions is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.