The main aim of stock picking is to find the market-beating stocks. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in CITIC Resources Holdings Limited (HKG:1205), since the last five years saw the share price fall 49%. And it's not just long term holders hurting, because the stock is down 33% in the last year. And the share price decline continued over the last week, dropping some 13%.

Given the past week has been tough on shareholders, let's investigate the fundamentals and see what we can learn.

Check out our latest analysis for CITIC Resources Holdings

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just 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.

CITIC Resources Holdings became profitable within the last five years. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics may better explain the share price move.

We note that the dividend has remained healthy, so that wouldn't really explain the share price drop. It's not immediately clear to us why the stock price is down but further research might provide some answers.

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

If you are thinking of buying or selling CITIC Resources Holdings stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of CITIC Resources Holdings, it has a TSR of -34% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

The total return of 23% received by CITIC Resources Holdings shareholders over the last year isn't far from the market return of -21%. So last year was actually even worse than the last five years, which cost shareholders 6% per year. It will probably take a substantial improvement in the fundamental performance for the company to reverse this trend. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand CITIC Resources Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that CITIC Resources Holdings is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

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