Can You Imagine How Syrah Resources' (ASX:SYR) Shareholders Feel About The 84% Share Price Increase?

Passive investing in index funds can generate returns that roughly match the overall market. But investors can boost returns by picking market-beating companies to own shares in. For example, the Syrah Resources Limited (ASX:SYR) share price is up 84% in the last year, clearly besting the market decline of around 1.6% (not including dividends). That's a solid performance by our standards! Zooming out, the stock is actually down 73% in the last three years.

See our latest analysis for Syrah Resources

Given that Syrah Resources 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.

Syrah Resources actually shrunk its revenue over the last year, with a reduction of 30%. The stock is up 84% in that time, a fine performance given the revenue drop. To us that means that there isn't a lot of correlation between the past revenue performance and the share price, but a closer look at analyst forecasts and the bottom line may well explain a lot.

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. You can see what analysts are predicting for Syrah Resources in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Syrah Resources shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 84% over one year. Notably the five-year annualised TSR loss of 11% per year compares very unfavourably with the recent share price performance. 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 Syrah Resources better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Syrah Resources is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is concerning...

Syrah Resources is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

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

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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