Archer Materials Limited (ASX:AXE) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 29% in the last month. Meanwhile over the last three years the stock has dropped hard. In that time, the share price dropped 57%. So the improvement may be a real relief to some. After all, could be that the fall was overdone.

The recent uptick of 11% could be a positive sign of things to come, so let's take a look at historical fundamentals.

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Given that Archer Materials didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. 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.

In the last three years, Archer Materials saw its revenue grow by 50% per year, compound. That is faster than most pre-profit companies. In contrast, the share price is down 16% compound, over three years - disappointing by most standards. This could mean hype has come out of the stock because the losses are concerning investors. But a share price drop of that magnitude could well signal that the market is overly negative on the stock.

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

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

A Different Perspective

Archer Materials shareholders gained a total return of 3.3% during the year. But that return falls short of the market. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 6% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Archer Materials you should be aware of, and 1 of them can't be ignored.

We will like Archer Materials 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.

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

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