Some stocks are best avoided. It hits us in the gut when we see fellow investors suffer a loss. For example, we sympathize with anyone who was caught holding mm2 Asia Ltd. (SGX:1B0) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 92%. We also note that the stock has performed poorly over the last year, with the share price down 46%. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 12% in the last three months. 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.

Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

View our latest analysis for mm2 Asia

mm2 Asia wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

In the last five years mm2 Asia saw its revenue shrink by 19% per year. That puts it in an unattractive cohort, to put it mildly. So it's not altogether surprising to see the share price down 14% per year in the same time period. This kind of price performance makes us very wary, especially when combined with falling revenue. Ironically, that behavior could create an opportunity for the contrarian investor - but only if there are good reasons to predict a brighter future.

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 mm2 Asia's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We've already covered mm2 Asia's share price action, but we should also mention its total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. We note that mm2 Asia's TSR, at -89% is higher than its share price return of -92%. When you consider it hasn't been paying a dividend, this data suggests shareholders have benefitted from a spin-off, or had the opportunity to acquire attractively priced shares in a discounted capital raising.