If you love investing in stocks you're bound to buy some losers. But the long term shareholders of Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZSE:RYM) have had an unfortunate run in the last three years. Regrettably, they have had to cope with a 71% drop in the share price over that period. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 41% in the last year. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 13% in the last three months. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

See our latest analysis for Ryman Healthcare

We don't think that Ryman Healthcare's modest trailing twelve month profit has the market's full attention at the moment. We think revenue is probably a better guide. Generally speaking, we'd consider a stock like this alongside loss-making companies, simply because the quantum of the profit is so low. For shareholders to have confidence a company will grow profits significantly, it must grow revenue.

In the last three years, Ryman Healthcare saw its revenue grow by 13% per year, compound. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. So it's hard to believe the share price decline of 20% per year is due to the revenue. More likely, the market was spooked by the cost of that revenue. This is exactly why investors need to diversify - even when a loss making company grows revenue, it can fail to deliver for shareholders.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. You can see what analysts are predicting for Ryman Healthcare in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We've already covered Ryman Healthcare's share price action, but we should also mention its total shareholder return (TSR). Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. Dividends have been really beneficial for Ryman Healthcare shareholders, and that cash payout explains why its total shareholder loss of 68%, over the last 3 years, isn't as bad as the share price return.