Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in ikeGPS Group Limited (NZSE:IKE), since the last five years saw the share price fall 33%. On the other hand, we note it's up 8.8% in about a month.

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 ikeGPS Group

Because ikeGPS Group made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

In the last half decade, ikeGPS Group saw its revenue increase by 24% per year. That's better than most loss-making companies. Shareholders are no doubt disappointed with the loss of 6%, each year, in that time. So you might argue the ikeGPS Group should get more credit for its rather impressive revenue growth over the period. If that's the case, now might be the smart time to take a close look at it.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

We're pleased to report that ikeGPS Group shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 19% over one year. That certainly beats the loss of about 6% per year over the last half decade. We generally put more weight on the long term performance over the short term, but the recent improvement could hint at a (positive) inflection point within the business. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for ikeGPS Group that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course ikeGPS Group may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

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