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Shareholders will be ecstatic, with their stake up 21% over the past week following Caribou Biosciences, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:CRBU) latest quarterly results. Statutory losses were much smaller than expected, at just US$0.38 per share, even though revenues of US$2.0m missed analyst expectations by a remarkable 35%. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.
See our latest analysis for Caribou Biosciences
Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for Caribou Biosciences from seven analysts is for revenues of US$12.3m in 2025. If met, it would imply a reasonable 7.2% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Losses are expected to increase substantially, hitting US$1.88 per share. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$12.8m and losses of US$1.95 per share in 2025. It looks like there's been a modest increase in sentiment in the recent updates, with the analysts becoming a bit more optimistic in their predictions for losses per share, even though the revenue numbers fell somewhat.
The consensus price target was broadly unchanged at US$15.50, implying that the business is performing roughly in line with expectations, despite adjustments to both revenue and earnings estimates. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Caribou Biosciences analyst has a price target of US$30.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$3.00. We would probably assign less value to the analyst forecasts in this situation, because such a wide range of estimates could imply that the future of this business is difficult to value accurately. With this in mind, we wouldn't rely too heavily the consensus price target, as it is just an average and analysts clearly have some deeply divergent views on the business.
Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. We would highlight that Caribou Biosciences' revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 5.7% annualised growth rate until the end of 2025 being well below the historical 33% p.a. growth over the last five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 21% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that Caribou Biosciences is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.