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Saturn Oil & Gas (CVE:SOIL) dips 11% this week as increasing losses might not be inspiring confidence among its investors

Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. While individual stocks can be big winners, plenty more fail to generate satisfactory returns. For example, the Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. (CVE:SOIL) share price is down 35% in the last year. That's disappointing when you consider the market declined 5.8%. Longer term shareholders haven't suffered as badly, since the stock is down a comparatively less painful 22% in three years. More recently, the share price has dropped a further 14% in a month. But this could be related to poor market conditions -- stocks are down 8.2% in the same time.

With the stock having lost 11% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

Check out our latest analysis for Saturn Oil & Gas

Saturn Oil & Gas 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 expect to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one does expect good top-line growth.

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Saturn Oil & Gas grew its revenue by 1,273% over the last year. That's a strong result which is better than most other loss making companies. Given the revenue growth, the share price drop of 35% seems quite harsh. Our sympathies to shareholders who are now underwater. Prima facie, revenue growth like that should be a good thing, so it's worth checking whether losses have stabilized. Our monkey brains haven't evolved to think exponentially, so humans do tend to underestimate companies that have exponential growth.

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

earnings-and-revenue-growth
earnings-and-revenue-growth

It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. This free report showing analyst forecasts should help you form a view on Saturn Oil & Gas

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 5.8% in the twelve months, Saturn Oil & Gas shareholders did even worse, losing 35%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 1.2% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Saturn Oil & Gas that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CA exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.

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