The Vapiano (ETR:VAO) Share Price Is Down 30% So Some Shareholders Are Getting Worried
The simplest way to benefit from a rising market is to buy an index fund. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. That downside risk was realized by Vapiano SE (ETR:VAO) shareholders over the last year, as the share price declined 30%. That falls noticeably short of the market return of around 12%. We wouldn't rush to judgement on Vapiano because we don't have a long term history to look at.
View our latest analysis for Vapiano
Given that Vapiano 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. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. 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.
In the last twelve months, Vapiano increased its revenue by 10%. While that may seem decent it isn't great considering the company is still making a loss. Given this lacklustre revenue growth, the share price drop of 30% seems pretty appropriate. It's important not to lose sight of the fact that profitless companies must grow. But if you buy a loss making company then you could become a loss making investor.
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 that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. You can see what analysts are predicting for Vapiano in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.
A Different Perspective
Given that the market gained 12% in the last year, Vapiano shareholders might be miffed that they lost 30%. While the aim is to do better than that, it's worth recalling that even great long-term investments sometimes underperform for a year or more. With the stock down 3.8% over the last three months, the market doesn't seem to believe that the company has solved all its problems. Given the relatively short history of this stock, we'd remain pretty wary until we see some strong business performance. 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 1 warning sign for Vapiano you should be aware of.
Of course Vapiano may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on DE exchanges.
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