how do you calculate total shareholder return 
to calculate total shareholder return tsr first subtract a stock s current price per share from the price originally paid for it then add the dollar amount of dividends received per share along with any other special distributions or payouts like from a stock buyback for example divide this sum by the stock s purchase price per share multiply by 100 to arrive at a percentage figure for the tsr the bottom linetotal shareholder return tsr is a way to determine how much your investment has made for you how much additional money your capital has earned in a specific time period it takes into account both appreciation in a stock s shares and the dividends paid on those shares it has its limitations what financial metric does not but overall it provides a more complete sense of your return on a stock than simply gaging the gain in the stock price 