If you love investing in stocks you're bound to buy some losers. But the last three years have been particularly tough on longer term NeoGenomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEO) shareholders. Unfortunately, they have held through a 58% decline in the share price in that time. And the ride hasn't got any smoother in recent times over the last year, with the price 22% lower in that time.

While the last three years has been tough for NeoGenomics shareholders, this past week has shown signs of promise. So let's look at the longer term fundamentals and see if they've been the driver of the negative returns.

Given that NeoGenomics 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 hope to see good revenue growth. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.

Over three years, NeoGenomics grew revenue at 9.0% per year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. So some shareholders would be frustrated with the compound loss of 16% per year. The market must have had really high expectations to be disappointed with this progress. It would be well worth taking a closer look at the company, to determine growth trends (and balance sheet strength).

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

NeoGenomics is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.

A Different Perspective

NeoGenomics shareholders are down 22% for the year, but the market itself is up 28%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 6% per year over five years. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand NeoGenomics better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for NeoGenomics that you should be aware of.

But note: NeoGenomics may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.