N Brown Group (LON:BWNG) adds UK£10m to market cap in the past 7 days, though investors from five years ago are still down 87%

N Brown Group plc (LON:BWNG) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 16% in the last month. But will that heal all the wounds inflicted over 5 years of declines? Unlikely. Indeed, the share price is down a whopping 88% in that time. So we don't gain too much confidence from the recent recovery. The fundamental business performance will ultimately determine if the turnaround can be sustained. While a drop like that is definitely a body blow, money isn't as important as health and happiness.

Although the past week has been more reassuring for shareholders, they're still in the red over the last five years, so let's see if the underlying business has been responsible for the decline.

View our latest analysis for N Brown Group

N Brown Group 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 hope to see good revenue growth. 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 five years N Brown Group saw its revenue shrink by 7.5% per year. That's not what investors generally want to see. The share price fall of 13% (per year, over five years) is a stern reminder that money-losing companies are expected to grow revenue. We're generally averse to companies with declining revenues, but we're not alone in that. Fear of becoming a 'bagholder' may be keeping people away from this stock.

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

This free interactive report on N Brown Group's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

N Brown Group shareholders are down 37% for the year, but the market itself is up 10%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 13% over the last half decade. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for N Brown Group (of which 2 are concerning!) you should know about.

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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