Generally speaking long term investing is the way to go. But unfortunately, some companies simply don't succeed. For example, after five long years the Raffles Education Limited (SGX:NR7) share price is a whole 64% lower. That's not a lot of fun for true believers. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 14% in the last 90 days.

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 Raffles Education

Given that Raffles Education didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect to see good revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one does expect good top-line growth.

In the last half decade, Raffles Education saw its revenue increase by 2.4% per year. That's not a very high growth rate considering it doesn't make profits. This lacklustre growth has no doubt fueled the loss of 10% 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 image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Raffles Education's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

We regret to report that Raffles Education shareholders are down 5.6% for the year. Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 0.8%. Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. However, the loss over the last year isn't as bad as the 10% per annum loss investors have suffered over the last half decade. 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. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Raffles Education (at least 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.