Sino Prima Gas Technology (SZSE:300483 investor five-year losses grow to 48% as the stock sheds CN¥347m this past week

Sino Prima Gas Technology Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300483) shareholders will doubtless be very grateful to see the share price up 46% in the last quarter. But if you look at the last five years the returns have not been good. In fact, the share price is down 48%, which falls well short of the return you could get by buying an index fund.

After losing 11% this past week, it's worth investigating the company's fundamentals to see what we can infer from past performance.

View our latest analysis for Sino Prima Gas Technology

Because Sino Prima Gas Technology 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 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, Sino Prima Gas Technology grew its revenue at 0.2% per year. That's far from impressive given all the money it is losing. Given the weak growth, the share price fall of 8% isn't particularly surprising. 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 company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

A Different Perspective

Sino Prima Gas Technology shareholders are down 18% for the year, but the market itself is up 7.8%. 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. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 8% over the last half decade. 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 Sino Prima Gas Technology better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Sino Prima Gas Technology you should be aware of.

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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.