12 hours ago
Shareholders in Avantium (AMS:AVTX) are in the red if they invested five years ago
Long term investing is the way to go, but that doesn't mean you should hold every stock forever. It hits us in the gut when we see fellow investors suffer a loss. For example, we sympathize with anyone who was caught holding Avantium N.V. (AMS:AVTX) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 81%. And we doubt long term believers are the only worried holders, since the stock price has declined 51% over the last twelve months. Furthermore, it's down 17% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders. We really feel for shareholders in this scenario. It's a good reminder of the importance of diversification, and it's worth keeping in mind there's more to life than money, anyway.
Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.
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Because Avantium 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. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.
Over five years, Avantium grew its revenue at 16% per year. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. So it's not at all clear to us why the share price sunk 13% throughout that time. You'd have to assume the market is worried that profits won't come soon enough. While there might be an opportunity here, you'd want to take a close look at the balance sheet strength.
The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).
We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. If you are thinking of buying or selling Avantium stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.
We've already covered Avantium's share price action, but we should also mention its total shareholder return (TSR). Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. We note that Avantium's TSR, at -74% is higher than its share price return of -81%. When you consider it hasn't been paying a dividend, this data suggests shareholders have benefitted from a spin-off, or had the opportunity to acquire attractively priced shares in a discounted capital raising.
While the broader market lost about 7.7% in the twelve months, Avantium shareholders did even worse, losing 51%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 12% over the last half decade. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Avantium better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Avantium (of which 2 don't sit too well with us!) you should know about.
Avantium is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of small cap companies at attractive valuations which insiders have been buying.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Dutch exchanges.
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