Hunan Creator Information Technologies CO., LTD. (SZSE:300730) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 13% in the last week. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last five years have been pleasing. Its return of 26% has certainly bested the market return!

In light of the stock dropping 13% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive five-year return.

Hunan Creator Information Technologies isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

Over the last half decade Hunan Creator Information Technologies' revenue has actually been trending down at about 3.4% per year. Despite the lack of revenue growth, the stock has returned a respectable 5%, compound, over that time. To us that suggests that there probably isn't a lot of correlation between the past revenue performance and the share price, but a closer look at analyst forecasts and the bottom line may well explain a lot.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Hunan Creator Information Technologies' earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 12% in the last year, Hunan Creator Information Technologies shareholders lost 8.7%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 5%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Hunan Creator Information Technologies better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Hunan Creator Information Technologies is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

We will like Hunan Creator Information Technologies 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.