Yahoo Finance Natera's (NASDAQ:NTRA) investors will be pleased with their massive 314% return over the last five years
Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. While the best companies are hard to find, but they can generate massive returns over long periods. Don't believe it? Then look at the Natera, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTRA) share price. It's 314% higher than it was five years ago. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. It's also good to see the share price up 20% over the last quarter.
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.
See our latest analysis for Natera
Natera isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.
For the last half decade, Natera can boast revenue growth at a rate of 30% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. Arguably, this is well and truly reflected in the strong share price gain of 33%(per year) over the same period. It's never too late to start following a top notch stock like Natera, since some long term winners go on winning for decades. So we'd recommend you take a closer look at this one, but keep in mind the market seems optimistic.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
Natera is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.
A Different Perspective
It's good to see that Natera has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 127% in the last twelve months. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 33% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Natera you should know about.
If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: many of them are unnoticed AND have attractive valuation).
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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
