When you buy and hold a stock for the long term, you definitely want it to provide a positive return. Furthermore, you'd generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the Tenable Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TENB) share price is up 51% in the last five years, that's less than the market return. Unfortunately the share price is down 14% in the last year.

Since it's been a strong week for Tenable Holdings shareholders, let's have a look at trend of the longer term fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for Tenable Holdings

Tenable Holdings 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. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one would hope for good top-line growth to make up for the lack of earnings.

In the last 5 years Tenable Holdings saw its revenue grow at 19% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. It's nice to see shareholders have made a profit, but the gain of 9% over the period isn't that impressive compared to the overall market. That's surprising given the strong revenue growth. It could be that the stock was previously over-priced - but if you're looking for underappreciated growth stocks, these numbers indicate that there might be an opportunity here.

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

Tenable Holdings is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Tenable Holdings in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

Tenable Holdings shareholders are down 14% for the year, but the market itself is up 27%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. On the bright side, long term shareholders have made money, with a gain of 9% per year over half a decade. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. Before spending more time on Tenable Holdings it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares.

But note: Tenable Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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

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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.