The main aim of stock picking is to find the market-beating stocks. But the main game is to find enough winners to more than offset the losers At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in H&R GmbH & Co. KGaA (ETR:2HRA), since the last five years saw the share price fall 36%. We also note that the stock has performed poorly over the last year, with the share price down 22%.

Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.

Check out our latest analysis for H&R GmbH KGaA

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

H&R GmbH KGaA became profitable within the last five years. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time.

In contrast to the share price, revenue has actually increased by 8.6% a year in the five year period. So it seems one might have to take closer look at the fundamentals to understand why the share price languishes. After all, there may be an opportunity.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

We know that H&R GmbH KGaA has improved its bottom line over the last three years, but what does the future have in store? This free interactive report on H&R GmbH KGaA's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 5.4% in the last year, H&R GmbH KGaA shareholders lost 20% (even including dividends). 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. Take risks, for example - H&R GmbH KGaA has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.