When we invest, we're generally looking for stocks that outperform the market average. And the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, the Nordex SE (ETR:NDX1) share price is up 48% in the last 5 years, clearly besting the market return of around 0.7% (ignoring dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 28% in the last year.

After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.

View our latest analysis for Nordex

Nordex 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.

For the last half decade, Nordex can boast revenue growth at a rate of 15% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. While the compound gain of 8% per year is good, it's not unreasonable given the strong revenue growth. If the strong revenue growth continues, we'd hope to see the share price to follow, in time. Opportunity lies where the market hasn't fully priced growth in the underlying business.

You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

We've already covered Nordex's share price action, but we should also mention its total shareholder return (TSR). Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. We note that Nordex's TSR, at 69% is higher than its share price return of 48%. When you consider it hasn't been paying a dividend, this data suggests shareholders have benefitted from a spin-off, or had the opportunity to acquire attractively priced shares in a discounted capital raising.