The three-year shareholder returns and company earnings persist lower as RENOVA (TSE:9519) stock falls a further 13% in past week

If you are building a properly diversified stock portfolio, the chances are some of your picks will perform badly. But the long term shareholders of RENOVA, Inc. (TSE:9519) have had an unfortunate run in the last three years. Sadly for them, the share price is down 58% in that time. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 43% in the last year. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 18% in the last 90 days. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

With the stock having lost 13% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

See our latest analysis for RENOVA

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.

RENOVA saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 49% per year, over the last three years. In comparison the 25% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. So, despite the prior disappointment, shareholders must have some confidence the situation will improve, longer term.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

This free interactive report on RENOVA's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 2.3% in the last year, RENOVA shareholders lost 43%. 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 6% 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. 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. Even so, be aware that RENOVA is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those make us uncomfortable...

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps that insiders are buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Japanese 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.