By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund (TSE:CHE.UN) shareholders have seen the share price rise 48% over three years, well in excess of the market return (11%, not including dividends). On the other hand, the returns haven't been quite so good recently, with shareholders up just 38%, including dividends.

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 Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund

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 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 three years of share price growth, Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we'd expect the share price to be up.

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

We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund, it has a TSR of 84% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

We're pleased to report that Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 38% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 8% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund that you should be aware of before investing here.