The main point of investing for the long term is to make money. Furthermore, you’d generally like to see the share price rise faster than the market. Unfortunately for shareholders, while the ClearSign Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:CLIR) share price is up 51% in the last five years, that’s less than the market return. Looking at the last year alone, the stock is up 9.9%.

Now it’s worth having a look at the company’s fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

Check out our latest analysis for ClearSign Technologies

Given that ClearSign Technologies didn’t make a profit in the last twelve months, we’ll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. Some companies are willing to postpone profitability to grow revenue faster, but in that case one would hope for good top-line growth to make up for the lack of earnings.

For the last half decade, ClearSign Technologies can boast revenue growth at a rate of 70% per year. Even measured against other revenue-focussed companies, that’s a good result. While long-term shareholders have made money, the 9% per year gain over five years fall short of the market return. That’s surprising given the strong revenue growth. Arguably this falls in a potential sweet spot – modest share price gains but good top line growth over the long term justifies investigation, in our book.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

This free interactive report on ClearSign Technologies’ balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

ClearSign Technologies shareholders are up 9.9% for the year. But that return falls short of the market. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 9% per year over five year. This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. It’s always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand ClearSign Technologies better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we’ve spotted 3 warning signs for ClearSign Technologies you should know about.

But note: ClearSign Technologies may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).