Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. While individual stocks can be big winners, plenty more fail to generate satisfactory returns. For example, the Nauticus Robotics, Inc. (NASDAQ:KITT) share price is down 34% in the last year. That's disappointing when you consider the market declined 17%. Nauticus Robotics hasn't been listed for long, so although we're wary of recent listings that perform poorly, it may still prove itself with time. It's down 36% in about a month. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

While the stock has risen 6.6% in the past week but long term shareholders are still in the red, let's see what the fundamentals can tell us.

See our latest analysis for Nauticus Robotics

Nauticus Robotics wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

In the last year Nauticus Robotics saw its revenue grow by 226%. That's a strong result which is better than most other loss making companies. Given the revenue growth, the share price drop of 34% seems quite harsh. Our sympathies to shareholders who are now underwater. Prima facie, revenue growth like that should be a good thing, so it's worth checking whether losses have stabilized. Our brains have evolved to think in linear fashion, so there's value in learning to recognize exponential growth. We are, in some ways, simply the wisest of the monkeys.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Nauticus Robotics will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

A Different Perspective

Nauticus Robotics shareholders are down 34% for the year, even worse than the market loss of 17%. There's no doubt that's a disappointment, but the stock may well have fared better in a stronger market. It's worth noting that the last three months did the real damage, with a 35% decline. So it seems like some holders have been dumping the stock of late - and that's not bullish. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that Nauticus Robotics is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those are significant...