Yahoo Finance If You Had Bought LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU) Stock Five Years Ago, You'd Be Sitting On A 84% Loss, Today
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 LSB Industries, Inc. (NYSE:LXU) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 84%. Furthermore, it's down 19% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders.
While a drop like that is definitely a body blow, money isn't as important as health and happiness.
View our latest analysis for LSB Industries
LSB Industries isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.
In the last five years LSB Industries saw its revenue shrink by 15% per year. That puts it in an unattractive cohort, to put it mildly. So it's not altogether surprising to see the share price down 31% per year in the same time period. We don't think this is a particularly promising picture. Ironically, that behavior could create an opportunity for the contrarian investor - but only if there are good reasons to predict a brighter future.
The graphic below shows how revenue and earnings have changed as management guided the business forward. If you want to see cashflow, you can click on the chart.
Balance sheet strength is crucual. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.
A Different Perspective
LSB Industries shareholders gained a total return of 2.4% during the year. But that was short of the market average. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it is certainly better than the yearly loss of about 31% endured over half a decade. It could well be that the business is stabilizing. Before spending more time on LSB Industries it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.
But note: LSB Industries 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 US exchanges.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
