Celebrations may be in order for AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. The analysts have sharply increased their revenue numbers, with a view that AnaptysBio will make substantially more sales than they'd previously expected. The market may be pricing in some blue sky too, with the share price gaining 16% to US$22.17 in the last 7 days. Could this upgrade be enough to drive the stock even higher?
Following the upgrade, the consensus from five analysts covering AnaptysBio is for revenues of US$48m in 2021, implying a disturbing 36% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share losses are expected to explode, reaching US$3.01 per share. Yet before this consensus update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$47m and losses of US$2.79 per share in 2021. Overall it looks as though the analysts were a bit mixed on the latest consensus updates. Although sales forecasts held steady, the consensus also made a modest increase to to its losses per share forecasts.
Despite expectations of heavier losses this year, the analysts have lifted their price target 8.0% to US$26.20, perhaps implying these losses are not expected to be recurring over the long term. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on AnaptysBio, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$42.00 and the most bearish at US$17.00 per share. Note the wide gap in analyst price targets? This implies to us that there is a fairly broad range of possible scenarios for the underlying business.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the AnaptysBio's past performance and to peers in the same industry. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 36% by the end of 2021. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 16% over the last five years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 18% per year. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - AnaptysBio is expected to lag the wider industry.
The Bottom Line
The most important thing to take away is that analysts increased their loss per share estimates for this year. There were no major changes to revenue forecasts, with analysts still expecting the business to grow slower than the wider market. There was also an increase in the price target, suggesting that there is more optimism baked into the forecasts than there was previously. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to this year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at AnaptysBio.
With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for AnaptysBio going out to 2025, and you can see them free on our platform here..
Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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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