Despite delivering investors losses of 52% over the past 3 years, InMode (NASDAQ:INMD) has been growing its earnings

If you are building a properly diversified stock portfolio, the chances are some of your picks will perform badly. But long term InMode Ltd. (NASDAQ:INMD) shareholders have had a particularly rough ride in the last three year. Unfortunately, they have held through a 52% decline in the share price in that time. But it's up 7.0% in the last week.

While the last three years has been tough for InMode shareholders, this past week has shown signs of promise. So let's look at the longer term fundamentals and see if they've been the driver of the negative returns.

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While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

During the unfortunate three years of share price decline, InMode actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 11% per year. Given the share price reaction, one might suspect that EPS is not a good guide to the business performance during the period (perhaps due to a one-off loss or gain). Or else the company was over-hyped in the past, and so its growth has disappointed.

Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics.

We think that the revenue decline over three years, at a rate of 3.9% per year, probably had some shareholders looking to sell. And that's not surprising, since it seems unlikely that EPS growth can continue for long in the absence of revenue growth.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We know that InMode has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think InMode will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 19% in the last year, InMode shareholders lost 3.0%. 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 3% 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. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with InMode , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

We will like InMode 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 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.