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It's not possible to invest over long periods without making some bad investments. But you have a problem if you face massive losses more than once in a while. So take a moment to sympathize with the long term shareholders of Emeren Group Ltd (NYSE:SOL), who have seen the share price tank a massive 83% over a three year period. That would be a disturbing experience. And more recent buyers are having a tough time too, with a drop of 35% in the last year. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 33% in the last three months. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report. We really feel for shareholders in this scenario. It's a good reminder of the importance of diversification, and it's worth keeping in mind there's more to life than money, anyway.
Since Emeren Group has shed US$15m from its value in the past 7 days, let's see if the longer term decline has been driven by the business' economics.
View our latest analysis for Emeren Group
Emeren Group isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.
Over three years, Emeren Group grew revenue at 19% per year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. So it seems unlikely the 22% share price drop (each year) is entirely about the revenue. More likely, the market was spooked by the cost of that revenue. If you buy into companies that lose money then you always risk losing money yourself. Just don't lose the lesson.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 11% in the last year, Emeren Group shareholders lost 35%. 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. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 3%, each year, over five years. It could be that the recent sell-off is an opportunity, so it may be worth checking the fundamental data for signs of a long term growth trend. 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. Even so, be aware that Emeren Group is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those can't be ignored...