China Lesso Group Holdings (HKG:2128) shareholders notch a 75% return over 1 year, yet earnings have been shrinking

These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But you can significantly boost your returns by picking above-average stocks. For example, the China Lesso Group Holdings Limited (HKG:2128) share price is up 66% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market return of around 31% (not including dividends). That's a solid performance by our standards! In contrast, the longer term returns are negative, since the share price is 37% lower than it was three years ago. After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals. AI is about to change healthcare. These 20 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part - they are all under $10bn in marketcap - there is still time to get in early. To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. Over the last twelve months, China Lesso Group Holdings actually shrank its EPS by 12%. Given the share price gain, we doubt the market is measuring progress with EPS. Therefore, it seems likely that investors are putting more weight on metrics other than EPS, at the moment. Unfortunately China Lesso Group Holdings' fell 11% over twelve months. So the fundamental metrics don't provide an obvious explanation for the share price gain. You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image). SEHK:2128 Earnings and Revenue Growth January 28th 2026 We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. 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 China Lesso Group Holdings will earn in the future (free profit forecasts). What About Dividends? When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. 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. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for China Lesso Group Holdings the TSR over the last 1 year was 75%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return. A Different Perspective It's good to see that China Lesso Group Holdings has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 75% in the last twelve months. And that does include the dividend. There's no doubt those recent returns are much better than the TSR loss of 8% per year over five years. This makes us a little wary, but the business might have turned around its fortunes. 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 China Lesso Group Holdings (including 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) . China Lesso Group Holdings is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find lesser know companies this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Hong Kong exchanges.