Every investor on earth makes bad calls sometimes. But you want to avoid the really big losses like the plague. So take a moment to sympathize with the long term shareholders of Beyond, Inc. (NYSE:BYON), who have seen the share price tank a massive 90% over a three year period. That'd be enough to cause even the strongest minds some disquiet. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 84% in the last year. Unfortunately the share price momentum is still quite negative, with prices down 31% in thirty days. While a drop like that is definitely a body blow, money isn't as important as health and happiness.

Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.

Our free stock report includes 4 warning signs investors should be aware of before investing in Beyond. Read for free now.

Beyond isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

Over the last three years, Beyond's revenue dropped 23% per year. That means its revenue trend is very weak compared to other loss making companies. The swift share price decline at an annual compound rate of 24%, reflects this weak fundamental performance. Never forget that loss making companies with falling revenue can and do cause losses for everyday investors. It's worth remembering that investors call buying a steeply falling share price 'catching a falling knife' because it is a dangerous pass time.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Beyond will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 6.2% in the last year, Beyond shareholders lost 84%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 10% over the last half decade. 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. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Beyond you should be aware of, and 1 of them makes us a bit uncomfortable.