Sunward Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (SZSE:002097) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 11% in the last month. But that doesn't help the fact that the three year return is less impressive. After all, the share price is down 22% in the last three years, significantly under-performing the market.

While the last three years has been tough for Sunward Intelligent Equipment 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Sunward Intelligent Equipment

Because Sunward Intelligent Equipment made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect 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 three years, Sunward Intelligent Equipment's revenue dropped 9.4% per year. That's not what investors generally want to see. The stock has disappointed holders over the last three years, falling 7%, annualized. And with no profits, and weak revenue, are you surprised? Of course, sentiment could become too negative, and the company may actually be making progress to profitability.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Take a more thorough look at Sunward Intelligent Equipment's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Sunward Intelligent Equipment shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 6.7% over the last year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 4% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Sunward Intelligent Equipment better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Sunward Intelligent Equipment .

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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.