If You Had Bought Rigel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RIGL) Stock A Year Ago, You'd Be Sitting On A 40% Loss, Today
Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 16% in the last quarter. But that is minimal compensation for the share price under-performance over the last year. After all, the share price is down 40% in the last year, significantly under-performing the market.
View our latest analysis for Rigel Pharmaceuticals
Rigel Pharmaceuticals isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually expect strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.
Rigel Pharmaceuticals grew its revenue by 893% over the last year. That's a strong result which is better than most other loss making companies. The share price drop of 40% over twelve months would be considered disappointing by many, so you might argue the company is getting little credit for its impressive revenue growth. On the bright side, if this company is moving profits in the right direction, top-line growth like that could be an opportunity. Our monkey brains haven't evolved to think exponentially, so humans do tend to underestimate companies that have exponential growth.
Depicted in the graphic below, you'll see revenue and earnings over time. If you want more detail, you can click on the chart itself.
We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Rigel Pharmaceuticals will earn in the future (free profit forecasts)
A Different Perspective
While the broader market gained around 8.2% in the last year, Rigel Pharmaceuticals shareholders lost 40%. 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. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 6.2% per year over five years. We realise that Buffett has said investors should 'buy when there is blood on the streets', but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality businesses. If you want to research this stock further, the data on insider buying is an obvious place to start. You can click here to see who has been buying shares - and the price they paid.
Rigel Pharmaceuticals is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.
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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
