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Nutrien Ltd. (TSE:NTR) missed earnings with its latest first-quarter results, disappointing overly-optimistic forecasters. Results showed a clear earnings miss, with US$4.9b revenue coming in 5.3% lower than what the analystsexpected. Statutory earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.02 missed the mark badly, arriving some 91% below what was expected. 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.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Nutrien's 18 analysts is for revenues of US$25.3b in 2025. This would reflect a reasonable 2.3% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to jump 251% to US$3.79. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$26.0b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.61 in 2025. If anything, the analysts look to have become slightly more optimistic overall; while they decreased their revenue forecasts, EPS predictions increased and ultimately earnings are more important.
See our latest analysis for Nutrien
The consensus has made no major changes to the price target of CA$78.96, suggesting the forecast improvement in earnings is expected to offset the decline in revenues next year. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Nutrien at CA$96.13 per share, while the most bearish prices it at CA$56.23. 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.
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. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Nutrien's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 3.0% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 6.1% over the past five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 3.9% per year. So it's pretty clear that, while revenue growth is expected to slow down, the wider industry is also expected to grow faster than Nutrien.