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It is doubtless a positive to see that the Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ:PLUG) share price has gained some 33% in the last three months. But only the myopic could ignore the astounding decline over three years. The share price has sunk like a leaky ship, down 87% in that time. So we're relieved for long term holders to see a bit of uplift. Only time will tell if the company can sustain the turnaround. We really hope anyone holding through that price crash has a diversified portfolio. Even when you lose money, you don't have to lose the lesson.
So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.
View our latest analysis for Plug Power
Plug Power 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 hope to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one would hope for good top-line growth to make up for the lack of earnings.
Over three years, Plug Power grew revenue at 24% per year. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. So why has the share priced crashed 23% per year, in the same time? The share price makes us wonder if there is an issue with profitability. Ultimately, revenue growth doesn't amount to much if the business can't scale well. Unless the balance sheet is strong, the company might have to raise capital.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
Plug Power is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 27% in the last year, Plug Power shareholders lost 0.9%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Unfortunately, longer term shareholders are suffering worse, given the loss of 6% doled out over the last five years. We'd need to see some sustained improvements in the key metrics before we could muster much enthusiasm. 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. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Plug Power (1 can't be ignored) that you should be aware of.