When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But on the bright side, if you buy shares in a high quality company at the right price, you can gain well over 100%. Long term Blackbird plc (LON:BIRD) shareholders would be well aware of this, since the stock is up 202% in five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 10% gain in the last three months.

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 Blackbird

Given that Blackbird didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

In the last 5 years Blackbird saw its revenue grow at 22% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. So it's not entirely surprising that the share price reflected this performance by increasing at a rate of 25% per year, in that time. So it seems likely that buyers have paid attention to the strong revenue growth. Blackbird seems like a high growth stock - so growth investors might want to add it to their watchlist.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Blackbird's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 4.1% in the twelve months, Blackbird shareholders did even worse, losing 50%. Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 25%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Blackbird you should know about.