Cannae Holdings (NYSE:CNNE) adds US$57m to market cap in the past 7 days, though investors from five years ago are still down 44%

Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 11% in the last month. But over the last half decade, the stock has not performed well. In fact, the share price is down 46%, which falls well short of the return you could get by buying an index fund.

While the stock has risen 5.0% in the past week but long term shareholders are still in the red, let's see what the fundamentals can tell us.

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Cannae 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. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

Over half a decade Cannae Holdings reduced its trailing twelve month revenue by 12% for each year. That's definitely a weaker result than most pre-profit companies report. It seems pretty reasonable to us that the share price dipped 8% per year in that time. This loss means the stock shareholders are probably pretty annoyed. It is possible for businesses to bounce back but as Buffett says, 'turnarounds seldom turn'.

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

You can see how its balance sheet has strengthened (or weakened) over time in this free interactive graphic.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 13% in the last year, Cannae Holdings shareholders lost 6.9% (even including dividends). 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. However, the loss over the last year isn't as bad as the 8% per annum loss investors have suffered over the last half decade. We'd need to see some sustained improvements in the key metrics before we could muster much enthusiasm. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Cannae Holdings .

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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.