It is a pleasure to report that the Titomic Limited (ASX:TTT) is up 184% in the last quarter. But spare a thought for the long term holders, who have held the stock as it bled value over the last five years. Indeed, the share price is down a whopping 96% in that time. It's true that the recent bounce could signal the company is turning over a new leaf, but we are not so sure. The real question is whether the business can leave its past behind and improve itself over the years ahead. 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.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

View our latest analysis for Titomic

Because Titomic 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. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. 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.

In the last half decade, Titomic saw its revenue increase by 33% per year. That's better than most loss-making companies. So on the face of it we're really surprised to see the share price has averaged a fall of 14% each year, in the same time period. You'd have to assume the market is worried that profits won't come soon enough. We'd recommend carefully checking for indications of future growth - and balance sheet threats - before considering a purchase.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

This free interactive report on Titomic's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We've already covered Titomic'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 Titomic's TSR, at -90% is higher than its share price return of -96%. 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.