Those who invested in Rakon (NZSE:RAK) five years ago are up 710%

Long term investing can be life changing when you buy and hold the truly great businesses. While not every stock performs well, when investors win, they can win big. Don't believe it? Then look at the Rakon Limited (NZSE:RAK) share price. It's 710% higher than it was five years ago. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. It's also good to see the share price up 74% over the last quarter. Anyone who held for that rewarding ride would probably be keen to talk about it.

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 5 years and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Rakon

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

During the five years of share price growth, Rakon moved from a loss to profitability. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

earnings-per-share-growth

This free interactive report on Rakon's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Rakon has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 305% in the last twelve months. That's better than the annualised return of 52% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Rakon better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Rakon you should know about.

We will like Rakon better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on NZ exchanges.

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.

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