We think all investors should try to buy and hold high quality multi-year winners. While the best companies are hard to find, but they can generate massive returns over long periods. To wit, the Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITCI) share price has soared 413% over five years. This just goes to show the value creation that some businesses can achieve. It's also good to see the share price up 20% over the last quarter. But this could be related to the strong market, which is up 13% in the last three months.

Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 3.7%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.

See our latest analysis for Intra-Cellular Therapies

Given that Intra-Cellular Therapies 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 expect strong revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

For the last half decade, Intra-Cellular Therapies can boast revenue growth at a rate of 76% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. Fortunately, the market has not missed this, and has pushed the share price up by 39% per year in that time. Despite the strong run, top performers like Intra-Cellular Therapies have been known to go on winning for decades. So we'd recommend you take a closer look at this one, but keep in mind the market seems optimistic.

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

Intra-Cellular Therapies is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Intra-Cellular Therapies will earn in the future (free analyst consensus estimates)

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that Intra-Cellular Therapies shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 42% over the last year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 39% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Intra-Cellular Therapies better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Intra-Cellular Therapies that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.

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.