The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the Axogen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXGN) share price is up 98% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market return of around 32% (not including dividends). That's a solid performance by our standards! Looking back further, the stock price is 53% higher than it was three years ago.

So let's investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress.

View our latest analysis for Axogen

Axogen isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

Over the last twelve months, Axogen's revenue grew by 19%. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. While the share price performed well, gaining 98% over twelve months, you could argue the revenue growth warranted it. If revenue stays on trend, there may be plenty more share price gains to come. But it's crucial to check profitability and cash flow before forming a view on the future.

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

Take a more thorough look at Axogen's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet.

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Axogen shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 98% over one year. That certainly beats the loss of about 3% per year over the last half decade. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Axogen better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Axogen .

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: many of them are unnoticed AND have attractive valuation).

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

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.