If you love investing in stocks you're bound to buy some losers. But long term Blueprint Medicines Corporation (NASDAQ:BPMC) shareholders have had a particularly rough ride in the last three year. So they might be feeling emotional about the 53% share price collapse, in that time. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 16% in the last 90 days.

Given the past week has been tough on shareholders, let's investigate the fundamentals and see what we can learn.

See our latest analysis for Blueprint Medicines

Blueprint Medicines 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 expect to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one does expect good top-line growth.

Over the last three years, Blueprint Medicines' revenue dropped 41% per year. That's definitely a weaker result than most pre-profit companies report. Arguably, the market has responded appropriately to this business performance by sending the share price down 15% (annualized) in the same time period. When revenue is dropping, and losses are still costing, and the share price sinking fast, it's fair to ask if something is remiss. It could be a while before the company repays long suffering shareholders with share price gains.

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

Blueprint Medicines 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 Blueprint Medicines in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

Investors in Blueprint Medicines had a tough year, with a total loss of 7.4%, against a market gain of about 18%. 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, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 5% over the last half decade. 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. 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. Take risks, for example - Blueprint Medicines has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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.