If you are building a properly diversified stock portfolio, the chances are some of your picks will perform badly. But the last three years have been particularly tough on longer term Harvard Bioscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBIO) shareholders. So they might be feeling emotional about the 61% share price collapse, in that time. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 37% in the last year.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

Check out our latest analysis for Harvard Bioscience

Harvard Bioscience 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. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

Over the last three years, Harvard Bioscience's revenue dropped 3.4% per year. That's not what investors generally want to see. The share price decline of 17% compound, over three years, is understandable given the company doesn't have profits to boast of, and revenue is moving in the wrong direction. Of course, it's the future that will determine whether today's price is a good one. We don't generally like to own companies that lose money and can't grow revenues. But any company is worth looking at when it makes a maiden profit.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.

A Different Perspective

Investors in Harvard Bioscience had a tough year, with a total loss of 37%, against a market gain of about 35%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 2% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild 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 business. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Even so, be aware that Harvard Bioscience is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...