Growth Without Returns

Step 1

Returns for every listed company, four API calls

Grouped-daily aggregates give the whole market's adjusted closes for any date, so 1Y/3Y/5Y total returns for all 3,811 mapped companies need no per-ticker loop:

# Whole-market adjusted closes for 4 dates = 4 API calls, no ticker loop
for d in [today, today-1y, today-3y, today-5y]:
    GET /v2/aggs/grouped/locale/us/market/stocks/{d}?adjusted=true
ret[w] = close_now / close_start - 1        # per ticker, per window

Step 2

Two ways to say "was supposed to grow"

"Underperformed expectations" needs an expectations measure. We use two, both computable from filings and prices — no analyst-estimate feed:

# "The market expected fast growth" is not a guess - it's a price.
# Starting P/S, with period-correct share counts so dilution can't fake it:
ps_start = shares_basic(FY at window start) * close(window start) / revenue(FY)
expected_fast = ps_start >= corpus_75th_percentile(ps_start)   # top quartile

# "The business actually grew fast" is realized delivery:
grew_fast = revenue_cagr(window) >= 0.15                       # 15%/yr

The starting revenue multiple is the market's growth forecast, crystallized in a price: nobody pays 4.08× sales (this corpus's 3Y-window top-quartile cut) for a business they expect to plod. Revenue history comes from XBRL financials for US filers with an income-statement fallback for 20-F foreign filers, and share counts come from the same fiscal-year statements — so a company that doubled its share count can't sneak a high starting multiple past the math.

Step 3

The screen

# The screen: the stock went nowhere while either promise was live
flag = ret <= 0 and (grew_fast or expected_fast)
cohort = "delivered but de-rated"        if grew_fast else \
         "priced for growth that never came"   # high P/S, growth missed
compression = ps_now / ps_start          # how much the multiple was cut

Every flagged company lands in one of two cohorts, and they mean opposite things: "delivered but de-rated" grew ≥15%/yr while the stock went nowhere — pure multiple compression, the growth promise kept but repriced. "Priced for growth that never came" started in the top P/S quartile and missed — the promise itself broke.

Step 4

Where the de-rating concentrates

Same density-lift method as the short-interest study: smoothed density of flagged companies over the map, divided by density of everyone.

The map

Explore it

Toggle the window; purple dots are flagged for that window. Hover for return, growth, starting multiple, and compression. Cohort filter narrows the ranking table below.

The ranking: most compressed first

Flagged companies for the selected window, sorted by how hard the multiple was cut (P/S now vs start where computable):

The hotspots

Product families the market gave up on (3Y window)

1. Digital Advertising Tech · 69 de-rated companies · peak lift 0.2×

The market may have cut multiples due to saturation, regulatory scrutiny, or shifting ad spend toward emerging platforms and formats, despite growth in revenue.

Atlas clusters here: AI-Driven Enterprise Solutions (41), Digital Payment Facilitators (15), Entertainment and Leisure Platforms (7)

	Members (3Y window)	return	rev growth	P/S now vs start	growth
DAVA	Endava plc	-93%	6%/yr	0.05x	never came
CCOI	Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc.	-86%	18%/yr	0.09x	delivered
TTD	The Trade Desk, Inc.	-83%	22%/yr	0.10x	delivered
GLOB	Globant S.A.	-79%	11%/yr	0.15x	never came
TTGT	TechTarget, Inc.	-86%	18%/yr	0.20x	delivered
REKR	Rekor Systems, Inc.	-84%	34%/yr	0.21x	delivered
RPD	Rapid7, Inc.	-75%	8%/yr	0.22x	never came
DV	DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.	-60%	18%/yr	0.23x	delivered
HUBS	HubSpot, Inc.	-54%	22%/yr	0.24x	delivered
SPSC	SPS Commerce, Inc.	-55%	19%/yr	0.24x	delivered

2. Biosimilar & Specialty Medtech · 73 de-rated companies · peak lift 0.25×

The market may have discounted these companies due to regulatory risks, pricing pressures, or slower-than-expected adoption of their innovative products despite revenue growth.

Atlas clusters here: Medical Device Innovators (43), Rare Disease Therapies (26), Healthcare Service Providers (4)

	Members (3Y window)	return	rev growth	P/S now vs start	growth
ALVO	Alvotech	-47%	92%/yr	0.10x	delivered
AGL	Agilon Health, Inc.	-78%	30%/yr	0.10x	delivered
RXST	RxSight, Inc.	-78%	40%/yr	0.12x	delivered
LUNG	Pulmonx Corporation	-77%	19%/yr	0.13x	delivered
INSP	Inspire Medical Systems, Inc.	-72%	31%/yr	0.13x	delivered
PACB	Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc.	-85%	8%/yr	0.13x	never came
NVO	Novo Nordisk A/S	-48%	20%/yr	0.14x	delivered
QTRX	Quanterix Corporation	-89%	10%/yr	0.16x	never came
BCYC	Bicycle Therapeutics plc	-81%	44%/yr	0.16x	delivered
EVO	Evotec SE	-83%	0%/yr	0.18x	never came

3. Commercial Real Estate Finance · 56 de-rated companies · peak lift 0.34×

The market may have cut multiples due to heightened risk aversion toward real estate debt and uncertainty over future cash flows amid economic slowdowns or interest rate hikes.

Atlas clusters here: Rental Property REITs (26), Wealth Management and Investment Advisors (16), Regional Commercial and Residential Lenders (11)

	Members (3Y window)	return	rev growth	P/S now vs start	growth
CSGP	CoStar Group, Inc.	-59%	14%/yr	0.26x	never came
SCM	Stellus Capital Investment Corporation	-38%	51%/yr	0.26x	delivered
SITC	SITE Centers Corp.	-94%	-39%/yr	0.27x	never came
CMTG	Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc.	-84%	-13%/yr	0.28x	never came
ARE	Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.	-54%	5%/yr	0.40x	never came
TCPC	BlackRock TCP Capital Corp.	-66%	7%/yr	0.40x	never came
FSK	FS KKR Capital Corp.	-40%	-9%/yr	0.40x	never came
AIV	Apartment Investment and Management Company	-67%	-10%/yr	0.45x	never came
NMFC	New Mountain Finance Corporation	-40%	10%/yr	0.47x	never came
FBRT	Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc.	-38%	10%/yr	0.50x	never came

Educational example. Returns use adjusted closes; revenue windows align fiscal years to price windows approximately (±1 year tolerance); compression uses current market cap over latest-FY revenue and can shift with dilution and fiscal-year timing. Foreign-filer coverage relies on a secondary data source. Not investment advice.