Elanco Animal Health (NYSE:ELAN) investors are sitting on a loss of 62% if they invested three years ago

If you love investing in stocks you're bound to buy some losers. But the last three years have been particularly tough on longer term Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN) shareholders. Sadly for them, the share price is down 62% in that time. More recently, the share price has dropped a further 14% in a month.

Since shareholders are down over the longer term, lets look at the underlying fundamentals over the that time and see if they've been consistent with returns.

View our latest analysis for Elanco Animal Health

Because Elanco Animal Health made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

Over the last three years, Elanco Animal Health's revenue dropped 2.8% per year. That is not a good result. The share price decline of 17% compound, over three years, is understandable given the company doesn't have profits to boast of, and revenue is moving in the wrong direction. Having said that, if growth is coming in the future, now may be the low ebb for the company. We'd be pretty wary of this one until it makes a profit, because we don't specialize in finding turnaround situations.

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

It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. If you are thinking of buying or selling Elanco Animal Health stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

A Different Perspective

Elanco Animal Health shareholders gained a total return of 18% during the year. But that was short of the market average. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 9% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. Investors who like to make money usually check up on insider purchases, such as the price paid, and total amount bought. You can find out about the insider purchases of Elanco Animal Health by clicking this link.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: most of them are flying under the radar).

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.