When you buy shares in a company, there is always a risk that the price drops to zero. But if you pick the right stock, you can make a lot more than 100%. For example, the Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) share price has soared 193% return in just a single year. It's also up 34% in about a month. We note that Twist Bioscience reported its financial results recently; luckily, you can catch up on the latest revenue and profit numbers in our company report. Unfortunately the longer term returns are not so good, with the stock falling 61% in the last three years.

While the stock has fallen 5.9% this week, it's worth focusing on the longer term and seeing if the stocks historical returns have been driven by the underlying fundamentals.

Twist Bioscience 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. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

Twist Bioscience grew its revenue by 22% last year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. While that revenue growth is pretty good the share price performance outshone it, with a lift of 193% as mentioned above. If the profitability is on the horizon then now could be a very exciting time to be a shareholder. But investors need to be wary of how the 'fear of missing out' could influence them to buy without doing thorough research.

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

This free interactive report on Twist Bioscience's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Twist Bioscience shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 193% over one year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 10% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. 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. Take risks, for example - Twist Bioscience has 3 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

Of course Twist Bioscience 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 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.