Unisys' (NYSE:UIS) investors will be pleased with their stellar 150% return over the last five years

When you buy a stock there is always a possibility that it could drop 100%. But on the bright side, you can make far more than 100% on a really good stock. For instance, the price of Unisys Corporation (NYSE:UIS) stock is up an impressive 150% over the last five years. The last week saw the share price soften some 2.1%.

So let's investigate 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 Unisys

Unisys wasn't profitable in the last twelve months, it is unlikely we'll see a strong correlation between its share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Arguably revenue is our next best option. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally expect 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 Unisys' revenue has actually been trending down at about 6.9% per year. On the other hand, the share price done the opposite, gaining 20%, compound, each year. It's a good reminder that expectations about the future, not the past history, always impact share prices. Still, we are a bit cautious in this kind of situation.

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

earnings-and-revenue-growth

This free interactive report on Unisys' 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 Unisys shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 100% over one year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 20% 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. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Unisys better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Unisys is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those can't be ignored...

Of course Unisys 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 US exchanges.

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.

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