The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. To wit, the Sienna Senior Living Inc. (TSE:SIA) share price is 41% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market return of around 18% (not including dividends) in the same period. If it can keep that out-performance up over the long term, investors will do very well! However, the longer term returns haven't been so impressive, with the stock up just 9.9% in the last three years.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Sienna Senior Living

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect 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 the last year Sienna Senior Living grew its earnings per share, moving from a loss to a profit.

When a company has just transitioned to profitability, earnings per share growth is not always the best way to look at the share price action.

We haven't seen Sienna Senior Living increase dividend payments yet, so the yield probably hasn't helped drive the share higher. It seems far more likely that the 14% boost to the revenue over the last year, is making the difference. After all, it's not necessarily a bad thing if a business sacrifices profits today in pursuit of profit tomorrow (metaphorically speaking).

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

It is of course excellent to see how Sienna Senior Living has grown profits over the years, but the future is more important for shareholders. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Sienna Senior Living, it has a TSR of 51% for the last 1 year. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.