Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. When you buy individual stocks, you can make higher profits, but you also face the risk of under-performance. Investors in Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & Chemicals Co.,Ltd. (SHSE:600389) have tasted that bitter downside in the last year, as the share price dropped 46%. That's well below the market decline of 8.4%. Longer term investors have fared much better, since the share price is up 3.4% in three years. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 23% in the last 90 days.

After losing 4.9% 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 Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Unhappily, Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd had to report a 80% decline in EPS over the last year. This fall in the EPS is significantly worse than the 46% the share price fall. It may have been that the weak EPS was not as bad as some had feared.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 8.4% in the twelve months, Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd shareholders did even worse, losing 46% (even including dividends). However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 11%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd that you should be aware of.

We will like Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & ChemicalsLtd better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

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.