This week we saw the Yonker Environmental Protection Co.,Ltd (SZSE:300187) share price climb by 23%. If you look at the last three years, the stock price is down. But that's not so bad when you consider its market is down 29%.

While the last three years has been tough for Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd 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.

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. 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.

Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd became profitable within the last five years. We would usually expect to see the share price rise as a result. So it's worth looking at other metrics to try to understand the share price move.

With a rather small yield of just 0.6% we doubt that the stock's share price is based on its dividend. Arguably the revenue decline of 14% per year has people thinking Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd is shrinking. And that's not surprising, since it seems unlikely that EPS growth can continue for long in the absence of revenue growth.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

If you are thinking of buying or selling Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet.

A Different Perspective

While it's never nice to take a loss, Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends,their trailing twelve month loss of 12% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 18%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 2%, each year, over five years. In the best case scenario the last year is just a temporary blip on the journey to a brighter future. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Yonker Environmental ProtectionLtd you should be aware of, and 1 of them doesn't sit too well with us.

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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.