While Empire Energy Group Limited (ASX:EEG) shareholders are probably generally happy, the stock hasn't had particularly good run recently, with the share price falling 12% in the last quarter. But looking back over the last year, the returns have actually been rather pleasing! Looking at the full year, the company has easily bested an index fund by gaining 64%.

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 1 year and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Empire Energy Group

Empire Energy Group isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. 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.

Empire Energy Group actually shrunk its revenue over the last year, with a reduction of 18%. Despite the lack of revenue growth, the stock has returned a solid 64% the last twelve months. We can correlate the share price rise with revenue or profit growth, but it seems the market had previously expected weaker results, and sentiment around the stock is improving.

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

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. If you are thinking of buying or selling Empire Energy Group stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Empire Energy Group has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 64% in the last twelve months. There's no doubt those recent returns are much better than the TSR loss of 1.2% per year over five years. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Empire Energy Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Empire Energy Group has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

Empire Energy Group is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of small cap companies at attractive valuations which insiders have been buying.