Yahoo Finance

Increase in profitability and industry-beating performance can be essential considerations in a stock for some investors. In this article, I will take a look at Fugro NV.’s (ENXTAM:FUR) track record on a high level, to give you some insight into how the company has been performing against its historical trend and its industry peers. See our latest analysis for Fugro

How Did FUR’s Recent Performance Stack Up Against Its Past?

I look at the ‘latest twelve-month’ data, which annualizes the latest 6-month earnings release, or some times, the latest annual report is already the most recent financial data. This blend enables me to assess different stocks on a similar basis, using new information. For Fugro, its most recent trailing-twelve-month earnings is -€164.97M, which, against last year’s level, has become less negative. Given that these values may be somewhat nearsighted, I have created an annualized five-year value for FUR’s net income, which stands at -€61.71M. This shows that, Fugro has historically performed better than recently, despite the fact that it seems like earnings are now heading back in the right direction again.

We can further examine Fugro’s loss by looking at what the industry has been experiencing over the past few years. Each year, for the past half a decade Fugro has seen an annual decline in revenue of -2.45%, on average. This adverse movement is a driver of the company’s inability to reach breakeven. Has the entire industry experienced this headwind? Scanning growth from a sector-level, the NL energy services industry has been growing its average earnings by double-digit 20.44% over the prior twelve months, . This is a turnaround from a volatile drop of -18.48% in the last couple of years. This suggests that, despite the fact that Fugro is presently unprofitable, it may have only just gained from the recent industry expansion, moving earnings into a more favorable position.

What does this mean?

Fugro’s track record can be a valuable insight into its earnings performance, but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. Companies that incur net loss is always hard to envisage what will happen in the future and when. The most valuable step is to examine company-specific issues Fugro may be facing and whether management guidance has dependably been met in the past. I suggest you continue to research Fugro to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:

• 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FUR’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FUR’s outlook.

• 2. Financial Health: Is FUR’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.

• 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 December 2017. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.