While it may not be enough for some shareholders, we think it is good to see the Grammer AG (ETR:GMM) share price up 15% in a single quarter. But that can't change the reality that over the longer term (five years), the returns have been really quite dismal. In fact, the share price has declined rather badly, down some 67% in that time. Some might say the recent bounce is to be expected after such a bad drop. Of course, this could be the start of a turnaround.

So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

Check out our latest analysis for Grammer

Grammer 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. 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 half decade, Grammer saw its revenue increase by 4.3% per year. That's far from impressive given all the money it is losing. This lacklustre growth has no doubt fueled the loss of 11% per year, in that time. We want to see an acceleration of revenue growth (or profits) before showing much interest in this one. However, it's possible too many in the market will ignore it, and there may be an opportunity if it starts to recover down the track.

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 Grammer'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 6.5% in the last year, Grammer shareholders lost 19%. 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. Unfortunately, longer term shareholders are suffering worse, given the loss of 11% doled out over the last five years. We'd need to see some sustained improvements in the key metrics before we could muster much enthusiasm. 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. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Grammer that you should be aware of before investing here.