Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Liberty Latin America Ltd. (NASDAQ:LILA) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 46% over a half decade.

Although the past week has been more reassuring for shareholders, they're still in the red over the last five years, so let's see if the underlying business has been responsible for the decline.

View our latest analysis for Liberty Latin America

Because Liberty Latin America 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. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

Over five years, Liberty Latin America grew its revenue at 5.0% per year. That's far from impressive given all the money it is losing. Given the weak growth, the share price fall of 8% isn't particularly surprising. Investors should consider how bad the losses are, and whether the company can make it to profitability with ease. Shareholders will want the company to approach profitability if it can't grow revenue any faster.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

It's good to see that there was some significant insider buying in the last three months. That's a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Liberty Latin America will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Liberty Latin America has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 45% in the last twelve months. There's no doubt those recent returns are much better than the TSR loss of 8% per year over five years. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. 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 Liberty Latin America 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).