When you buy shares in a company, there is always a risk that the price drops to zero. But if you pick the right stock, you can make a lot more than 100%. For example, the Alset Inc. (NASDAQ:AEI) share price has soared 159% in the last 1 year. Most would be very happy with that, especially in just one year! Also pleasing for shareholders was the 44% gain in the last three months. The company reported its financial results recently; you can catch up on the latest numbers by reading our company report. Zooming out, the stock is actually down 22% in the last three years.
Since it's been a strong week for Alset shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.
Alset 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 hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.
In the last year Alset saw its revenue shrink by 8.2%. We're a little surprised to see the share price pop 159% in the last year. This is a good example of how buyers can push up prices even before the fundamental metrics show much growth. It's quite likely the revenue fall was already priced in, anyway.
The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).
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. Dive deeper into the earnings by checking this interactive graph of Alset's earnings, revenue and cash flow.
It's nice to see that Alset shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 159% over the last year. There's no doubt those recent returns are much better than the TSR loss of 15% per year over five years. This makes us a little wary, but the business might have turned around its fortunes. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Alset better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Alset (2 can't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
Alset is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find lesser know companies this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
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.