As every investor would know, you don't hit a homerun every time you swing. But serious investors should think long and hard about avoiding extreme losses. So spare a thought for the long term shareholders of Orbital Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:OEG); the share price is down a whopping 85% in the last twelve months. While some investors are willing to stomach this sort of loss, they are usually professionals who spread their bets thinly. At least the damage isn't so bad if you look at the last three years, since the stock is down 29% in that time. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 61% in the last 90 days. We really feel for shareholders in this scenario. It's a good reminder of the importance of diversification, and it's worth keeping in mind there's more to life than money, anyway.

Now let's have a look at the company's fundamentals, and see if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business.

View our latest analysis for Orbital Energy Group

Given that Orbital Energy Group 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. 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.

In the last twelve months, Orbital Energy Group increased its revenue by 591%. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. So on the face of it we're really surprised to see the share price down 85% over twelve months. There's clearly something unusual going on here such as an acquisition that hasn't delivered expected profits. We'd recommend taking a very close look at the stock (and any available forecasts), before considering a purchase, because the share price is not correlated with the revenue growth, that's for sure. Of course, investors do over-react when they are stressed out, so the sell-off could be unjustifiably severe.

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

We consider it positive that insiders have made significant purchases in the last year. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money. If you are thinking of buying or selling Orbital Energy Group stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 15% in the twelve months, Orbital Energy Group shareholders did even worse, losing 85%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case there's a good opportunity. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 13% over the last half decade. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality 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. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 4 warning signs with Orbital Energy Group (at least 3 which are potentially serious) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.