It is a pleasure to report that the Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300571) is up 52% in the last quarter. But over the last half decade, the stock has not performed well. In fact, the share price is down 47%, which falls well short of the return you could get by buying an index fund.

While the last five years has been tough for Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology 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.

Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology 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 it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.

Over five years, Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology grew its revenue at 5.6% per year. That's far from impressive given all the money it is losing. Given this fairly low revenue growth (and lack of profits), it's not particularly surprising to see the stock down 8% (annualized) in the same time frame. Investors should consider how bad the losses are, and whether the company can make it to profitability with ease. Shareholders will want the company to approach profitability if it can't grow revenue any faster.

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

This free interactive report on Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Investors in Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology had a tough year, with a total loss of 19%, against a market gain of about 7.5%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 8% per year over five years. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Hangzhou Anysoft Information Technology (2 don't sit too well with us!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings.

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.