Yahoo Finance Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM) shareholders have endured a 19% loss from investing in the stock a year ago
It's easy to match the overall market return by buying an index fund. When you buy individual stocks, you can make higher profits, but you also face the risk of under-performance. For example, the Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) share price is down 19% in the last year. That contrasts poorly with the market return of 16%. Because Affirm Holdings hasn't been listed for many years, the market is still learning about how the business performs. In the last ninety days we've seen the share price slide 47%.
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.
View our latest analysis for Affirm Holdings
Given that Affirm Holdings didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. 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.
Affirm Holdings grew its revenue by 62% over the last year. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. Given the revenue growth, the share price drop of 19% seems quite harsh. Our sympathies to shareholders who are now underwater. Prima facie, revenue growth like that should be a good thing, so it's worth checking whether losses have stabilized. Our brains have evolved to think in linear fashion, so there's value in learning to recognize exponential growth. We are, in some ways, simply the wisest of the monkeys.
The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).
Affirm Holdings is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.
A Different Perspective
While Affirm Holdings shareholders are down 19% for the year, the market itself is up 16%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Notably, the loss over the last year isn't as bad as the 47% drop in the last three months. This probably signals that the business has recently disappointed shareholders - it will take time to win them back. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Affirm Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Affirm Holdings that you should be aware of before investing here.
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 US 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.
