The three-year earnings decline has likely contributed toAzenta's (NASDAQ:AZTA) shareholders losses of 53% over that period

If you love investing in stocks you're bound to buy some losers. But the long term shareholders of Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) have had an unfortunate run in the last three years. Sadly for them, the share price is down 53% in that time.

After losing 3.0% this past week, it's worth investigating the company's fundamentals to see what we can infer from past performance.

View our latest analysis for Azenta

Azenta isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

In the last three years, Azenta saw its revenue grow by 19% per year, compound. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. So some shareholders would be frustrated with the compound loss of 15% per year. The market must have had really high expectations to be disappointed with this progress. So this is one stock that might be worth investigating further, or even adding to your watchlist.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

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

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 36% in the last year, Azenta shareholders lost 2.8%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 6%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Azenta better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Azenta you should know about.

But note: Azenta may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

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.