If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. Better yet, you'd like to see the share price move up more than the market average. But Blueprint Medicines Corporation (NASDAQ:BPMC) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 17% over five years, which is below the market return. The last year hasn't been great either, with the stock up just 3.6%.

Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.

Blueprint Medicines 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 half decade Blueprint Medicines' revenue has actually been trending down at about 0.9% per year. The falling revenue is arguably somewhat reflected in the lacklustre return of 3% per year over that time. Arguably that's not bad given the soft revenue and loss-making position. Of course, a closer look at the bottom line - and any available analyst forecasts - could reveal an opportunity (if they point to future growth).

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

Blueprint Medicines is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.

A Different Perspective

Blueprint Medicines provided a TSR of 3.6% over the last twelve months. But that return falls short of the market. On the bright side, that's still a gain, and it's actually better than the average return of 3% over half a decade This could indicate that the company is winning over new investors, as it pursues its strategy. 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 instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Blueprint Medicines that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

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.