Long term investing is the way to go, but that doesn't mean you should hold every stock forever. We really hate to see fellow investors lose their hard-earned money. Spare a thought for those who held Future Bright Holdings Limited (HKG:703) for five whole years - as the share price tanked 93%. We also note that the stock has performed poorly over the last year, with the share price down 72%. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 45% in the last three months. We note that the company has reported results fairly recently; and the market is hardly delighted. You can check out the latest numbers in our company report.

We really hope anyone holding through that price crash has a diversified portfolio. Even when you lose money, you don't have to lose the lesson.

View our latest analysis for Future Bright Holdings

Given that Future Bright Holdings didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one does expect good top-line growth.

In the last half decade, Future Bright Holdings saw its revenue increase by 7.4% per year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. So the stock price fall of 40% per year seems pretty steep. The market can be a harsh master when your company is losing money and revenue growth disappoints.

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 Future Bright Holdings'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 lost about 6.6% in the twelve months, Future Bright Holdings shareholders did even worse, losing 72%. 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. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 39% over the last half decade. We realise that Buffett 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 businesses. Shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.