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 a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. For example, the PCI-PAL PLC (LON:PCIP) share price has soared 131% in the last half decade. Most would be very happy with that. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 30% gain in the last three months.

Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for PCI-PAL

PCI-PAL wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

For the last half decade, PCI-PAL can boast revenue growth at a rate of 37% per year. Even measured against other revenue-focussed companies, that's a good result. Meanwhile, its share price performance certainly reflects the strong growth, given the share price grew at 18% per year, compound, during the period. So it seems likely that buyers have paid attention to the strong revenue growth. PCI-PAL seems like a high growth stock - so growth investors might want to add it to their watchlist.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. You can see what analysts are predicting for PCI-PAL in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

PCI-PAL provided a TSR of 12% over the year. That's fairly close to the broader market return. We should note here that the five-year TSR is more impressive, at 18% per year. More recently, the share price growth has slowed. But it has to be said the overall picture is one of good long term and short term performance. Arguably that makes PCI-PAL a stock worth watching. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand PCI-PAL better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for PCI-PAL (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you should be aware of before investing here.