It's normal to be annoyed when stock you own has a declining share price. But sometimes a share price fall can have more to do with market conditions than the performance of the specific business. The North Navigation Control Technology Co.,Ltd. (SHSE:600435) is down 13% over a year, but the total shareholder return is -13% once you include the dividend. That's better than the market which declined 19% over the last year. At least the damage isn't so bad if you look at the last three years, since the stock is down 3.7% in that time. Contrary to the longer term story, the last month has been good for stockholders, with a share price gain of 8.4%.

While the last year has been tough for North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd shareholders, this past week has shown signs of promise. So let's look at the longer term fundamentals and see if they've been the driver of the negative returns.

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 North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd saw its earnings per share drop below zero. While this may prove temporary, we'd consider it a negative, so it doesn't surprise us that the stock price is down. However, there may be an opportunity for investors if the company can recover.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

This free interactive report on North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Although it hurts that North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd returned a loss of 13% in the last twelve months, the broader market was actually worse, returning a loss of 19%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 0.5%, each year, over five years. It could be that the business is just facing some short term problems, but shareholders should keep a close eye on the fundamentals. You could get a better understanding of North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd's growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

We will like North Navigation Control TechnologyLtd better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.