It can certainly be frustrating when a stock does not perform as hoped. But when the market is down, you're bound to have some losers. The Yonker Environmental Protection Co.,Ltd (SZSE:300187) is down 17% over three years, but the total shareholder return is -16% once you include the dividend. That's better than the market which declined 25% over the last three years. On top of that, the share price is down 12% in the last week.

Since Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd has shed CN¥439m from its value in the past 7 days, let's see if the longer term decline has been driven by the business' economics.

See our latest analysis for Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd

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 imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Over the three years that the share price declined, Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd's earnings per share (EPS) dropped significantly, falling to a loss. Since the company has fallen to a loss making position, it's hard to compare the change in EPS with the share price change. However, we can say we'd expect to see a falling share price in this scenario.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

A Different Perspective

The total return of 16% received by Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd shareholders over the last year isn't far from the market return of -17%. Unfortunately, last year's performance is a deterioration of an already poor long term track record, given the loss of 1.0% per year over the last five years. Weak performance over the long term usually destroys market confidence in a stock, but bargain hunters may want to take a closer look for signs of a turnaround. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd you should be aware of.

Of course Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

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.