One of the frustrations of investing is when a stock goes down. But it can difficult to make money in a declining market. The Bengang Steel Plates Co., Ltd. (SZSE:000761) is down 25% over three years, but the total shareholder return is -14% once you include the dividend. That's better than the market which declined 14% over the last three years. And the share price decline continued over the last week, dropping some 8.1%.

With the stock having lost 8.1% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

Bengang Steel Plates 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.

In the last three years Bengang Steel Plates saw its revenue shrink by 13% per year. That's not what investors generally want to see. The stock has disappointed holders over the last three years, falling 8%, annualized. That makes sense given the lack of either profits or revenue growth. However, in this kind of situation you can sometimes find opportunity, where sentiment is negative but the company is actually making good progress.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

Investors should note that there's a difference between Bengang Steel Plates' total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price change, which we've covered above. Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. Bengang Steel Plates' TSR of was a loss of 14% for the 3 years. That wasn't as bad as its share price return, because it has paid dividends.

A Different Perspective

Bengang Steel Plates shareholders are down 14% for the year, but the market itself is up 15%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 0.2% per year over half a decade. 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 Bengang Steel Plates better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Bengang Steel Plates you should be aware of.

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of undervalued companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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.