As an investor its worth striving to ensure your overall portfolio beats the market average. But its virtually certain that sometimes you will buy stocks that fall short of the market average returns. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term China Literature Limited (HKG:772) shareholders, since the share price is down 47% in the last three years, falling well short of the market decline of around 3.7%. Furthermore, it's down 25% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.

With the stock having lost 6.8% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

View our latest analysis for China Literature

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. 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.

China Literature 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.

We think that the revenue decline over three years, at a rate of 9.4% per year, probably had some shareholders looking to sell. After all, if revenue keeps shrinking, it may be difficult to find earnings growth in the future.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. If you are thinking of buying or selling China Literature stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

A Different Perspective

China Literature shareholders are down 11% for the year, but the market itself is up 25%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. 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. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand China Literature better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with China Literature .

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of undervalued small cap companies 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 Hong Kong exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.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.