Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ:RUN) shareholders will doubtless be very grateful to see the share price up 64% in the last quarter. But that is small recompense for the exasperating returns over three years. In that time, the share price dropped 56%. So it's good to see it climbing back up. Perhaps the company has turned over a new leaf.

While the stock has risen 6.1% in the past week but long term shareholders are still in the red, let's see what the fundamentals can tell us.

Because Sunrun made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

Over three years, Sunrun grew revenue at 15% 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).

Sunrun is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Sunrun in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Sunrun shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 40% over the last year. That's better than the annualised return of 6% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for Sunrun (of which 1 is potentially serious!) you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

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.