Would Shareholders Who Purchased Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' (NYSE:TEVA) Stock Five Years Be Happy With The Share price Today?

Long term investing works well, but it doesn't always work for each individual stock. We don't wish catastrophic capital loss on anyone. For example, we sympathize with anyone who was caught holding Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE:TEVA) during the five years that saw its share price drop a whopping 80%. Unhappily, the share price slid 5.4% in the last week.

We really hope anyone holding through that price crash has a diversified portfolio. Even when you lose money, you don't have to lose the lesson.

See our latest analysis for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries 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. That's because it's hard to be confident a company will be sustainable if revenue growth is negligible, and it never makes a profit.

In the last five years Teva Pharmaceutical Industries saw its revenue shrink by 5.8% per year. That's not what investors generally want to see. If a business loses money, you want it to grow, so no surprises that the share price has dropped 12% each year in that time. It takes a certain kind of mental fortitude (or recklessness) to buy shares in a company that loses money and doesn't grow revenue. Fear of becoming a 'bagholder' may be keeping people away from this stock.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

A Different Perspective

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries provided a TSR of 5.9% over the last twelve months. But that return falls short of the market. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it is certainly better than the yearly loss of about 12% endured over half a decade. It could well be that the business is stabilizing. Shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

We will like Teva Pharmaceutical Industries better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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