The truth is that if you invest for long enough, you're going to end up with some losing stocks. But the long term shareholders of USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NYSE:USNA) have had an unfortunate run in the last three years. Sadly for them, the share price is down 61% in that time. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 35% in the last year. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 21% in the last three months.

If the past week is anything to go by, investor sentiment for USANA Health Sciences isn't positive, so let's see if there's a mismatch between fundamentals and the share price.

To paraphrase Benjamin Graham: Over the short term the market is a voting machine, but over the long term it's a weighing machine. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

USANA Health Sciences saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 24% per year, over the last three years. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 27% average annual decrease in the share price. So it seems like sentiment towards the stock hasn't changed all that much over time. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

This free interactive report on USANA Health Sciences' earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

Investors in USANA Health Sciences had a tough year, with a total loss of 35%, against a market gain of about 21%. 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 8% 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. 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. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with USANA Health Sciences (including 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) .

Of course USANA Health Sciences may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.