Yield10 Bioscience Inc (NASDAQ:YTEN): Does The Earnings Decline Make It An Underperformer?

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Assessing Yield10 Bioscience Inc’s (NASDAQ:YTEN) performance as a company requires looking at more than just a years’ earnings data. Below, I will run you through a simple sense check to build perspective on how Yield10 Bioscience is doing by comparing its most recent earnings with its historical trend, in addition to the performance of its chemicals industry peers. Check out our latest analysis for Yield10 Bioscience

How Well Did YTEN Perform?

I prefer to use data from the most recent 12 months, which annualizes the latest 6-month earnings release, or some times, the latest annual report is already the most recent financial data. This enables me to assess various companies on a more comparable basis, using the most relevant data points. For Yield10 Bioscience, its most recent bottom-line (trailing twelve month) is -US$11.02M, which, in comparison to last year’s level, has become more negative. Since these figures may be fairly short-term thinking, I’ve calculated an annualized five-year value for Yield10 Bioscience’s net income, which stands at -US$17.96M. This means even though net income is negative, it has become less negative over the years.

NasdaqCM:YTEN Income Statement May 25th 18
NasdaqCM:YTEN Income Statement May 25th 18

We can further analyze Yield10 Bioscience’s loss by looking at what the industry has been experiencing over the past few years. Each year, for the past half a decade Yield10 Bioscience has seen an annual decline in revenue of -12.00%, on average. This adverse movement is a driver of the company’s inability to reach breakeven. Has the entire industry experienced this headwind? Scanning growth from a sector-level, the US chemicals industry has been growing its average earnings by double-digit 18.68% in the prior twelve months, and a more muted 6.17% over the previous five years. This means that whatever tailwind the industry is enjoying, Yield10 Bioscience has not been able to realize the gains unlike its average peer.

What does this mean?

While past data is useful, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Companies that incur net loss is always hard to envisage what will happen in the future and when. The most insightful step is to examine company-specific issues Yield10 Bioscience may be facing and whether management guidance has consistently been met in the past. I recommend you continue to research Yield10 Bioscience to get a better picture of the stock by looking at:

  1. Financial Health: Is YTEN’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.

  2. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 March 2018. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.

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