The worst result, after buying shares in a company (assuming no leverage), would be if you lose all the money you put in. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. For instance, the price of Zephyr Energy plc (LON:ZPHR) stock is up an impressive 292% over the last five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 24% 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.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

View our latest analysis for Zephyr Energy

Because Zephyr Energy 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. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

In the last 5 years Zephyr Energy saw its revenue grow at 69% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. So it's not entirely surprising that the share price reflected this performance by increasing at a rate of 31% per year, in that time. So it seems likely that buyers have paid attention to the strong revenue growth. To our minds that makes Zephyr Energy worth investigating - it may have its best days ahead.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Take a more thorough look at Zephyr Energy's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Zephyr Energy has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 37% in the last twelve months. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 31% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Zephyr Energy .

We will like Zephyr Energy better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued stocks (mostly small caps) with considerable, recent, insider buying.