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The truth is that if you invest for long enough, you're going to end up with some losing stocks. But the last three years have been particularly tough on longer term Expert Systems Holdings Limited (HKG:8319) shareholders. Unfortunately, they have held through a 52% decline in the share price in that time. The more recent news is of little comfort, with the share price down 21% in a year. Even worse, it's down 15% in about a month, which isn't fun at all. But this could be related to poor market conditions -- stocks are down 7.7% in the same time.
See our latest analysis for Expert Systems Holdings
To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. 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.
During five years of share price growth, Expert Systems Holdings moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we are surprised to see the share price is down. So it's worth looking at other metrics to try to understand the share price move.
We note that the dividend seems healthy enough, so that probably doesn't explain the share price drop. It's good to see that Expert Systems Holdings has increased its revenue over the last three years. But it's not clear to us why the share price is down. It might be worth diving deeper into the fundamentals, lest an opportunity goes begging.
The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
This free interactive report on Expert Systems Holdings's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.
A Different Perspective
The last twelve months weren't great for Expert Systems Holdings shares, which performed worse than the market, costing holders 21%, including dividends. Meanwhile, the broader market slid about 11%, likely weighing on the stock. Unfortunately, the longer term story isn't pretty, with investment losses running at 22% per year over three years. We'd need clear signs of growth in the underlying business before we could muster much enthusiasm for this one. Before forming an opinion on Expert Systems Holdings you might want to consider the cold hard cash it pays as a dividend. This free chart tracks its dividend over time.
If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.