Some stocks are best avoided. It hits us in the gut when we see fellow investors suffer a loss. Spare a thought for those who held mdf commerce inc. (TSE:MDF) for five whole years - as the share price tanked 89%. We also note that the stock has performed poorly over the last year, with the share price down 84%. More recently, the share price has dropped a further 54% in a month. Importantly, this could be a market reaction to the recently released financial results. 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.

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 mdf commerce

Because mdf commerce made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually expect strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

Over five years, mdf commerce grew its revenue at 3.7% per year. That's far from impressive given all the money it is losing. Nonetheless, it's fair to say the rapidly declining share price (down 14%, compound, over five years) suggests the market is very disappointed with this level of growth. We'd be pretty cautious about this one, although the sell-off may be too severe. A company like this generally needs to produce profits before it can find favour with new investors.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 0.03% in the twelve months, mdf commerce shareholders did even worse, losing 84%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 13% per year over five years. 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand mdf commerce better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that mdf commerce is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is significant...