Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. And highest quality companies can see their share prices grow by huge amounts. Don't believe it? Then look at the Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) share price. It's 605% higher than it was five years ago. And this is just one example of the epic gains achieved by some long term investors. It's also up 39% in about a month. Anyone who held for that rewarding ride would probably be keen to talk about it.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Given that Impinj only made minimal earnings in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue to gauge its business development. Generally speaking, we'd consider a stock like this alongside loss-making companies, simply because the quantum of the profit is so low. For shareholders to have confidence a company will grow profits significantly, it must grow revenue.

For the last half decade, Impinj can boast revenue growth at a rate of 20% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. Arguably, this is well and truly reflected in the strong share price gain of 48%(per year) over the same period. It's never too late to start following a top notch stock like Impinj, since some long term winners go on winning for decades. So we'd recommend you take a closer look at this one, but keep in mind the market seems optimistic.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Impinj 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 Impinj in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Impinj shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 301% over the last year. That's better than the annualised return of 48% 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Impinj better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Impinj has 4 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

Of course Impinj may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

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.