Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. When you buy individual stocks, you can make higher profits, but you also face the risk of under-performance. That downside risk was realized by GURU Organic Energy Corp. (TSE:GURU) shareholders over the last year, as the share price declined 31%. That's well below the market return of 7.4%. GURU Organic Energy hasn't been listed for long, so although we're wary of recent listings that perform poorly, it may still prove itself with time. Furthermore, it's down 17% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.
With the stock having lost 12% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.
Check out our latest analysis for GURU Organic Energy
Given that GURU Organic Energy didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.
GURU Organic Energy grew its revenue by 31% over the last year. That's definitely a respectable growth rate. Unfortunately that wasn't good enough to stop the share price dropping 31%. You might even wonder if the share price was previously over-hyped. However, that's in the past now, and it's the future that matters most.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. If you are thinking of buying or selling GURU Organic Energy stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.
Given that the market gained 7.4% in the last year, GURU Organic Energy shareholders might be miffed that they lost 31%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. With the stock down 17% over the last three months, the market doesn't seem to believe that the company has solved all its problems. Given the relatively short history of this stock, we'd remain pretty wary until we see some strong business performance. 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 be aware of the 4 warning signs we've spotted with GURU Organic Energy .
If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CA exchanges.
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