Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. While the best companies are hard to find, but they can generate massive returns over long periods. Just think about the savvy investors who held Calumet, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLMT) shares for the last five years, while they gained 424%. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. It's also good to see the share price up 15% over the last quarter.

After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.

Because Calumet 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. 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.

In the last 5 years Calumet saw its revenue grow at 10% per year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. However, the share price gain of 39% during the period is considerably stronger. We usually like strong growth stocks but it does seem the market already appreciates this one quite well!

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Calumet has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 35% in the last twelve months. However, the TSR over five years, coming in at 39% per year, is even more impressive. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Calumet better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Calumet is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is concerning...

But note: Calumet 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.